SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 12 September 2024, Shift 2 · General Awareness · Question 11 of 100

Text as printed on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; answer per SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 6 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. The questions and options here are reproduced as printed on a candidate's own response sheet for this shift — the Commission's text, unchanged. Each answer is SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet; SSC allowed challenges to it and never publishes a final key. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Which of the following is an example of public sector industry in India?

(a)Tata Iron Steel Company
(b)Bajaj Auto
(c)Dabur
(d)Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited

Answer

Why

Correct — D. Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) is owned and operated by the Government of India, and government ownership is exactly what makes an industry public sector.

BHEL manufactures power plant equipment — boilers, turbines, generators — as a central public sector enterprise with Maharatna status. The three other names are firms owned by individuals or private groups, so option (d) is the public sector example.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Tata Iron Steel Company — Tata Iron and Steel Company is privately owned, founded by the Tatas at Jamshedpur in 1907. Textbooks use it as the standard example of a private sector industry.
(b)
Bajaj Auto — Bajaj Auto is a privately owned two-wheeler manufacturer with no government stake, and another of the textbook examples of the private sector.
(c)
Dabur — Dabur is a private consumer goods company. An old Indian brand is not thereby a public undertaking — ownership decides it.

Concept

Industries are classified by ownership, and there are four labels: public, private, joint and cooperative.

Public sector means government-owned and government-run, as with BHEL, SAIL and ONGC. Private sector means owned by an individual or a group, as with TISCO, Bajaj Auto and Dabur.

Joint sector means the state and private capital together, and cooperative sector means ownership by the producers or suppliers themselves, AMUL being the usual example. The test is who owns the firm, not how big or how old it is.

The four options are the textbook's own examples, which is why the item is decided by recognition rather than reasoning.

Key facts

BHEL is a central public sector enterprise manufacturing power plant equipment.
Ownership decides the classification: public, private, joint or cooperative sector.
TISCO, Bajaj Auto and Dabur are the standard textbook examples of private sector industries.
Cooperative sector industries are owned by their producers or suppliers, as with AMUL.

Study next

Ownership classes of industry with one standard example for each classMaharatna, Navratna and Miniratna categories among central public sector enterprisesJoint sector undertakings and how they differ from public sector undertakings

Common traps

Assuming that any company with Bharat or India in its name is government-owned.
Mixing joint sector with public sector, when a joint sector firm has both state and private ownership.

The same four ownership labels come back in different wrappers.

The public sector version is asked again at 13 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.4 (keyed BHEL against Adani, Reliance and Tata), the private sector version at 17 Sep 2024, 09:00, GA Q.6 (keyed Tata Iron and Steel Company), and the joint sector version at 19 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.6 (keyed Oil India Limited).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.