The green revolution technology resulted in an increase in production of cereal production from 72.4 million tons in 1965-66 to ________ million tons in 1978-79.

Correct — D. The pairing the question uses is 72.4 million tonnes in 1965-66 rising to 131.9 million tonnes in 1978-79, the figures standard Indian economy textbooks quote for the Green Revolution period.

That is a rise of about 59.5 million tonnes, roughly 82 per cent across thirteen years, and it is the jump behind the claim that India had become self-sufficient in food grains by the end of the 1970s.

Option (d) carries the recorded figure.

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  150.8 — 150.8 overshoots the period. Output did not reach the 150 million tonne mark in the 1970s, and the year in the stem is 1978-79.
• (b)
  165.9 — 165.9 would mean a rise of about 129 per cent on the 1965-66 base, far more than these thirteen years delivered.
• (c)
  141.2 — 141.2 is the nearest miss, roughly 9 million tonnes above the recorded 131.9. Nothing in the stem lets you reason it out, so this one has to be remembered.

The Green Revolution is the package of high-yielding variety seeds, assured irrigation, chemical fertiliser and price support taken up from the mid-1960s, first in wheat and mainly in Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh.

M. S. Swaminathan led the Indian effort, working with the dwarf wheat varieties Norman Borlaug had bred in Mexico, and C. Subramaniam was the agriculture minister who backed it.

Output questions come as a straight pair of numbers, so the two years and the two tonnages are worth memorising together rather than separately.

Key facts

• The question pairs 72.4 million tonnes in 1965-66 with 131.9 million tonnes in 1978-79 for the Green Revolution period.
• The Green Revolution began in the mid-1960s with high-yielding variety seeds, wheat first.
• M. S. Swaminathan is regarded as the leader of the Green Revolution in India.
• Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh were the regions it transformed first.

Common traps

• All four options are plausible tonnages, so this rewards recall and not reasoning.
• The base figure 72.4 belongs to 1965-66, and swapping the two years is the other way to lose the mark.

No directly related past PYQ was found.