Consider the following and arrange them in correct chronological order.
1. Food for work programme
2. Community Development Programme
3. Training for Rural Youth for Self Employment (TRYSEM)
4. Drough

Question

Consider the following and arrange them in correct chronological order.
1. Food for work programme
2. Community Development Programme
3. Training for Rural Youth for Self Employment (TRYSEM)
4. Drought Prone Area Programme
Select the correct answer from the code given below :
Code :

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — C, 2, 4, 1, 3 — Community Development Programme, then Drought Prone Area Programme, then Food for Work Programme, then TRYSEM.

Taking them by date: the Community Development Programme (item 2) was launched on 2 October 1952, Gandhi's birth anniversary, after the Community Projects Administration had been set up under the Planning Commission on 31 March that year — it is India's first nationwide rural development effort and by two decades the oldest thing on this list. The Drought Prone Area Programme (item 4) belongs to the Fourth Plan period and is conventionally dated 1973-74; it was an area-development scheme for chronically drought-prone districts. The Food for Work Programme (item 1) came in 1977, paying wages in foodgrains drawn from surplus stocks, and was restructured as the National Rural Employment Programme in 1980. TRYSEM (item 3) followed in 1979 as the training component of the Integrated Rural Development Programme, equipping rural youth aged 18 to 35 from below-poverty-line households for self-employment.

Two anchors are enough to finish the question without recalling every year. First, the Community Development Programme is far and away the earliest, which eliminates options (a) and (d), both of which open with the Drought Prone Area Programme. Second, the Food for Work Programme (1977) comes before TRYSEM (1979), which eliminates option (b), the only surviving option that puts TRYSEM third. That leaves (c). The sequence also tells a coherent policy story: community development in the 1950s, area development in the early 1970s, wage employment in the late 1970s, and self-employment training at the end of that decade.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Wrong at both ends. It opens with the Drought Prone Area Programme, a Fourth-Plan-period scheme of the early 1970s, ahead of the Community Development Programme of 2 October 1952 — a gap of some twenty years. It then closes with the Food for Work Programme (1977) after TRYSEM (1979), reversing the true order of the last pair.  (b) The most tempting of the wrong options, because it gets the first half exactly right — Community Development Programme (1952) then Drought Prone Area Programme (1973-74). It fails on the tail: it places TRYSEM before the Food for Work Programme, whereas the Food for Work Programme was launched in 1977 and TRYSEM in 1979.  (d) This option does get the closing pair right — Food for Work Programme (1977) before TRYSEM (1979) — but it opens by putting the Drought Prone Area Programme ahead of the Community Development Programme. The Community Development Programme dates from 1952 and predates every other item on the list.

Concept: These four programmes are not variations on one idea; they are four successive generations of Indian rural policy, and dating them is easiest if you date the generation. The 1950s answer to rural poverty was community development — a single integrated effort covering agriculture, communications, health and education, delivered through the newly created development block. The early 1970s answer was area development: identify the regions whose handicap is ecological, such as chronically drought-prone or desert districts, and treat the area rather than the household. The late 1970s answer was direct wage employment, paying the rural poor to build assets, initially in foodgrains from India's growing buffer stocks. The last turn, at the close of that decade, was self-employment: train and equip a poor household to run a small enterprise of its own rather than wait for a wage. Every later Indian rural scheme is descended from one of these four lines.

State PCS 2025 Q122 — Economy PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q122 — Economy PYQ with Answer