In recent years, the agriculture sector in India has shown growth annually from Financial Year 2017 to Financial Year 2023, demonstrating resilience despite challenges, which was approximately:

Question

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Correct — C, 5.0 percent. The Economic Survey 2024-25, tabled in Parliament on 31 January 2025, records that India's agriculture sector grew at an average of about 5 per cent a year between FY17 and FY23. The finding was headlined by the Press Information Bureau as 'India's agriculture sector demonstrates resilience, average growth rate of 5 per cent during FY17 to FY23' — the question reproduces that sentence almost word for word, including the word 'resilience'. The Survey attributes the run to productivity gains, crop diversification and the expansion of allied activities, and notes that the sector grew 3.5 per cent in the second quarter of FY25.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) This is the previous Survey's number, not this one. The Economic Survey 2023-24 reported an average annual agriculture growth of 4.18 per cent over the preceding five years — a different Survey, a different period and a different figure. Carrying last year's statistic into this year's question is the single most common way to lose this mark.  (b) A filler value that sits between the two figures students actually remember (4.18 and 5.0). It is not a growth rate the Survey reports for the FY17-FY23 period.  (d) Close to a real Survey figure but for a different variable — the Economic Survey 2024-25 puts the growth of agricultural incomes at about 5.23 per cent a year over the past decade. Income growth and sectoral growth are separate series; the FY17-FY23 sector average is 5 per cent.

Concept: The Economic Survey is the Ministry of Finance's annual review of the economy, prepared by the Department of Economic Affairs under the Chief Economic Adviser, and tabled a day before the Union Budget. Its agriculture chapter tracks the growth of gross value added in agriculture and allied activities at constant prices. A multi-year average, such as the 5 per cent for FY17-FY23, smooths out the sharp year-to-year swings that a monsoon-dependent sector produces — a point the Survey makes explicitly when it calls the sector 'resilient'. Growth in these years came less from foodgrains than from allied activities, horticulture and diversification.

State PCS 2026 Q89 — Economy PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2026 Q89 — Economy PYQ with Answer