Which of the following was the main objective of the 20 point programme announced on 26 June, 1975 ?
A. To improve the standard of living.
B. To help the people living below the poverty line (Poverty

Question

Which of the following was the main objective of the 20 point programme announced on 26 June, 1975 ?
A. To improve the standard of living.
B. To help the people living below the poverty line (Poverty alleviation).

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — option (3), both statements A and B are correct. The Twenty Point Programme (TPP) was announced by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on 26 June 1975, in the early days of the Emergency, as a package of directives aimed squarely at rural poverty and basic welfare rather than at any single sector. Its twenty points, taken together, covered expanding irrigation, stepping up rural employment, distributing surplus ceiling land and house-sites to the landless, fixing and enforcing minimum agricultural wages, rehabilitating bonded labourers, extending the public distribution system, building rural housing, expanding primary health and family-planning services, and pushing literacy and welfare schemes for women and children. That mix serves both statements at once: A, because irrigation, housing, health, education and a functioning public distribution system are all direct improvements to the standard of living of the rural population; and B, because land redistribution, minimum wages, bonded-labour rehabilitation and PDS access are targeted specifically at people below the poverty line, i.e. poverty alleviation in the narrower sense. Neither statement describes a separate, rival objective — 'raising the standard of living' and 'alleviating poverty' were two ways of stating the same underlying aim of the programme, which is why the correct reading is that both hold together rather than one displacing the other.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) This would require B to be false, but several of the programme's original twenty points — land redistribution to the landless, minimum wages for agricultural labour, rehabilitation of bonded labourers, and expansion of the public distribution system — are aimed specifically at the population below the poverty line, not at the standard of living of the population in general. Excluding poverty alleviation from the programme's objective does not match its actual content.  (b) This would require A to be false, but points such as expanding irrigation, rural housing, primary health facilities, drinking-water supply and education apply to raising general living standards, not only to the poorest segment. Reducing the programme to poverty alleviation alone leaves out this broader welfare content that the twenty points plainly include.  (d) This discards both stated objectives, but the Twenty Point Programme is documented, then and since, as exactly this combination of welfare and poverty-focused measures — it is one of independent India's best-known anti-poverty and welfare initiatives, still tracked today (later revised as TPP-2006) by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. An option that denies both objectives does not match the programme's well-recorded content or purpose.

Concept: The Twenty Point Programme (TPP) is a Government of India umbrella programme, first launched on 26 June 1975, that bundles together welfare and poverty-alleviation measures spanning agriculture, rural employment, land reform, housing, health, education and social welfare into a single monitored package rather than a single-sector scheme. It has been revised periodically to reflect changing priorities — most recently as TPP-2006 — while retaining its original character as a checklist of basic-needs commitments tracked at the state and district level.

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