In relation to Maharashtra which statements are true as per 2011 census ?
(a) In population Maharashtra rank 2nd in Country
(b) Density is 365 per sq. km
(c) Literacy is 82.91%
(d) Sex ratio is 925
An

Question

In relation to Maharashtra which statements are true as per 2011 census ?
(a) In population Maharashtra rank 2nd in Country
(b) Density is 365 per sq. km
(c) Literacy is 82.91%
(d) Sex ratio is 925
Answer options :

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — option (1), only statements (a), (b) and (c). The question is decided by statement (d), and it is worth seeing why before checking anything else: of the four choices offered, option (1) is the only one that leaves statement (d) out, so a candidate who knows that Maharashtra's 2011 sex ratio was not 925 can mark the answer without adjudicating the other three. Maharashtra returned 929 females per 1,000 males at the 2011 Census — below the all-India figure of 943 — so the printed 925 is wrong and every option containing (d) falls. Statement (a) is correct: with a population of about 11.24 crore, Maharashtra was the second most populous state in the country at the 2011 Census, behind Uttar Pradesh, and accounted for roughly 9.3 per cent of India's people. Statement (b) is correct: the state's population density was 365 persons per square kilometre, below the all-India density of 382, because Maharashtra combines an enormous urban concentration around Mumbai and Pune with large, thinly settled tracts in the drought-prone interior and the forested east. Statement (c) gives Maharashtra's literacy as 82.91 per cent. The Census's published final table for the state records 82.34 per cent, with male literacy at 88.38 and female at 75.87, and the figure of about 82.9 per cent is the one carried in a good deal of state-level Census 2011 material; the two differ by roughly half a percentage point and nothing in this question turns on which is used, since the option list contains no choice that treats statement (c) as false while treating (d) as false too. Either reading leaves option (1) as the answer. What the candidate actually needs here is the sex ratio, and the safest form in which to hold it is as a pair: Maharashtra 929 against India 943.

Why the other options are wrong — (b) This option keeps statement (d), whose figure of 925 for Maharashtra's sex ratio is wrong — the 2011 Census recorded 929 females per 1,000 males — and simultaneously drops statement (a), which is sound, since Maharashtra was indeed the second most populous state in the country after Uttar Pradesh. It therefore makes two errors in opposite directions: it admits the one false statement and rejects the most securely established true one. The 925 figure is close enough to the real 929 to survive a hurried reading, which is exactly the point of setting it.  (c) This option also keeps the false statement (d) and additionally drops statement (b), the density figure of 365 persons per square kilometre, which is correct. Density is one of the most frequently quoted Maharashtra Census figures and sits just below the all-India value of 382, so a candidate who has the state profile in mind should retain it with confidence. As with the other wrong options, the fatal element is the retention of (d): any option that treats a sex ratio of 925 as correct cannot be the answer.  (d) This accepts all four statements, including the sex ratio of 925, and so fails on the same point as the other two wrong options. It is the most tempting of them because the first three statements are genuinely correct and the fourth is only narrowly wrong — 925 against an actual 929 — so a candidate who verifies (a), (b) and (c) and then reads (d) quickly may sweep it in. This is the standard function of an 'all of the above' option on a statement question: it rewards momentum and punishes the failure to check the last item as carefully as the first.

Concept: The sex ratio in Indian census practice is the number of females per 1,000 males, which is the reverse of the convention used in several other countries, and it is one of the Census's most closely watched indicators because it registers both the survival chances of girls and the effect of sex-selective practices. At the 2011 Census India's overall sex ratio was 943, an improvement on 933 in 2001 but still well short of parity. Maharashtra's 929 sits below the national figure, which is a striking result for a state that is comparatively prosperous, highly urbanised and among the more literate — a reminder that the sex ratio does not track income or education in any simple way, and that the states with the most adverse ratios have often been among the country's better-off. Alongside the sex ratio, the four indicators MPSC returns to for Maharashtra are the state's population and rank, its density, its literacy and its decadal growth, and they are best learned as a single connected profile with the corresponding all-India figure next to each, since almost every question is built on a comparison.

State PCS 2024 Q29 — Geography PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2024 Q29 — Geography PYQ with Answer