NDA (II) 2022 General Ability Test · Question 115 of 150

Correct — B, National Cadet Corps (NCC). Puneet Sagar Abhiyan is the NCC's own nationwide flagship campaign, launched on 1 December 2021 to clear sea shores, beaches, rivers and lakes of plastic and other waste and to spread awareness among local communities. It began as a month-long drive using the NCC's cadet strength in coastal units, and after the response it drew it was continued as a year-round activity by NCC units across the country. As of the September 2022 exam it was therefore a live, continuing NCC campaign rather than a one-off event.

• (a)Indian Coast Guard — The Coast Guard is the natural guess because it polices the coastline and leads marine pollution response, and it runs its own coastal conservation effort in Operation Olivia for Olive Ridley turtles. Puneet Sagar Abhiyan, however, is not a Coast Guard programme.
• (c)Indian Navy — Naval units do take part in beach clean-ups and coastal outreach, and the campaign is under the Ministry of Defence umbrella, which makes this tempting. But the campaign was conceived and is run by the NCC, whose cadets supply the volunteers, not by the Navy.
• (d)Swachh Bharat Mission — Swachh Bharat is the national cleanliness mission launched in 2014 and provides the broader policy spirit the abhiyan invokes, but it is a government mission, not the body that initiated this particular named campaign. The question asks who started Puneet Sagar Abhiyan, and that is the NCC.

The National Cadet Corps is the youth wing attached to the Indian armed forces, raised on 16 July 1948 and functioning under the Ministry of Defence, with Army, Navy and Air wings in schools and colleges. Its motto is Unity and Discipline. Alongside military training it is used as a national volunteer force for social campaigns — tree planting, blood donation, disaster relief and, since December 2021, coastal and water-body clean-up under Puneet Sagar Abhiyan.

All four options are plausible custodians of a clean coastline, so the question turns on ownership of a name rather than on reasoning. The useful habit is to file each named campaign against the body that launched it, because the NDA paper asks that pairing every year. Puneet Sagar Abhiyan belongs to the NCC, Operation Olivia to the Indian Coast Guard, and Swachh Bharat to the Government of India as a whole. One update worth carrying beyond the exam: later in 2022 the NCC and the United Nations Environment Programme signed a memorandum of understanding in the presence of the Raksha Mantri to take the campaign's clean-water-bodies goal to a wider stage, so the abhiyan today has an international partner it did not have when it started.

• Puneet Sagar Abhiyan is a National Cadet Corps campaign, launched on 1 December 2021.
• Its stated aim is to clean sea shores, beaches, rivers and lakes of plastic and other waste and to build awareness among local communities.
• It started as a month-long drive by coastal NCC units and was then made a continuous, year-round activity across NCC units.
• The NCC was raised on 16 July 1948, works under the Ministry of Defence and carries the motto Unity and Discipline.
• Later in 2022 the NCC and the United Nations Environment Programme signed a memorandum of understanding linked to the campaign.

• Choosing the Indian Coast Guard or the Indian Navy because the campaign is about the sea — ownership, not subject matter, is being tested.
• Treating Swachh Bharat Mission as the launcher of every cleanliness drive in the country.
• Confusing Puneet Sagar Abhiyan with the Coast Guard's Operation Olivia, which protects Olive Ridley turtles.

As this who-launched-it question, as a match-the-campaign-to-the-organisation list, or as a statement pair combining the launching body with the year of launch.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The National Cadet Corps functions under which Union Ministry?

  • (a)Ministry of Home Affairs
  • (b)Ministry of Defence
  • (c)Ministry of Education
  • (d)Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports

  Answer(b) Ministry of Defence — the NCC is the youth wing attached to the armed forces, though it works closely with educational institutions.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The motto of the National Cadet Corps is

  • (a)Service Before Self
  • (b)Unity and Discipline
  • (c)Duty, Honour, Country
  • (d)Valour and Faith

  Answer(b) Unity and Discipline — the motto adopted for the Corps, expressed in Hindi as Ekta aur Anushasan.