With reference to the 'National Policy on the Voluntary Sector-2007' consider the following statements regarding the characteristics of Voluntary Organization (VOs) :
(a) These organizations are priva

Question

With reference to the 'National Policy on the Voluntary Sector-2007' consider the following statements regarding the characteristics of Voluntary Organization (VOs) :
(a) These organizations are private in nature and separate from the Government.
(b) They do not return profits generated to their owners or directors.
(c) They are self-governing and are controlled by the Government.
(d) They are registered organizations or informal groups with defined aims and objectives.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct ?

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — option (3), 'Only (a), (b) and (d)'. The National Policy on the Voluntary Sector, 2007 opens by defining what it means by a voluntary organisation, and it does so through a short list of characteristics: such organisations are private, that is, separate from Government; they do not return profits generated to their owners or directors; they are self-governing, that is, not controlled by Government or by any other external body; and they are registered organisations or informal groups with defined aims and objectives. Statements (a), (b) and (d) reproduce three of those four characteristics accurately and are correct. Statement (c) takes the fourth and breaks it. The policy's clause reads that VOs are self-governing, meaning not controlled by Government; the statement as printed says they are self-governing AND are controlled by the Government, which reverses the second half of the very clause it is quoting. A candidate does not need to have read the policy to reject it, and this is the most useful thing about the question: statement (c) contradicts itself on its face. 'Self-governing' and 'controlled by the Government' cannot both be true of the same body, since self-government means precisely the absence of external control. A self-contradictory statement is false whatever the policy says, so every option containing (c) can be struck out at once — which removes option (1), option (2) and option (4) together and leaves option (3) standing without any further work. This is worth internalising as a technique: before checking a statement against remembered facts, check it against itself. Statements that carry an internal contradiction, or that assert and deny the same relation, are among the cheapest marks in any paper. The substantive point behind the drafting is equally worth holding — autonomy from Government is the defining feature of the voluntary sector in this policy, and the policy's first stated objective is to create an enabling environment that safeguards exactly that autonomy.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Includes statement (c), which contradicts itself by describing organisations as both self-governing and controlled by the Government, and drops statement (d), which is an accurate reproduction of the policy's clause that VOs may be registered organisations or informal groups with defined aims and objectives. The inclusion of informal, unregistered groups is deliberate policy language — the sector was not to be defined by registration status alone — so a candidate who assumes only registered bodies count will find statement (d) doubtful and be pulled towards this option.  (b) Keeps the self-contradictory statement (c) and discards statement (a), which states that voluntary organisations are private in nature and separate from Government. That is the first characteristic the policy lists, and it is the foundation of the rest: the sector is defined in the first instance by its separateness from the state. Rejecting (a) while accepting (c), which asserts government control, produces an internally inconsistent reading of the policy, since the two statements cannot both be judged the way this option judges them.  (d) Requires statement (c) to be correct along with the other three. It is not: it asserts self-government and government control in the same breath. An inclusive option — offered eleven times in this booklet — is defensible only when every named item survives inspection on its own, and it fails the moment one does not. Here the failure is visible without any knowledge of the policy at all, because the contradiction is contained entirely within the statement. A candidate reaching for the all-inclusive option because three of the four statements looked familiar has skipped the one check that decides the question.

Concept: The National Policy on the Voluntary Sector, 2007, brought out under the Planning Commission's stewardship, was the Government of India's first policy statement on the voluntary sector. Its purpose was to set out how the state understands the sector and how it proposes to work with it, and it turns on a single idea: that voluntary organisations are valuable to public purposes precisely because they are not part of the state, and that government support must therefore be designed so as not to erode their independence. The policy's stated objectives run along four lines — to create an enabling environment that stimulates the enterprise and effectiveness of the sector while safeguarding its autonomy; to enable voluntary organisations to mobilise financial resources legitimately, from within India and from abroad; to identify systems through which government can work together with the sector on a basis of mutual trust and shared responsibility; and to encourage voluntary organisations to adopt transparent and accountable systems of governance and management. The last of these is the counterweight to the first: autonomy is claimed against the state, and accountability is owed in return, chiefly to the communities served and to the donors who fund the work.

State PCS 2026 Q36 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2026 Q36 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer