SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 17 September 2024, Shift 1 · General Awareness · Question 21 of 98

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.

According to Census of India 2011, which Union Territory has the highest slum population?

(a)Chandigarh
(b)Andaman and Nicobar Islands
(c)Puducherry
(d)Delhi

Answer

Why

Correct — D. Among the Union Territories, Delhi returned the largest slum population in Census 2011, so option (d) is the answer.

Slum counts follow urban size, and Delhi's urban block has no rival among the UTs — its 2011 population was about 1.68 crore, far above Chandigarh, Puducherry or the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Delhi is also the UT with the widest gap between migration into the city and the housing built for it, which is where slum settlement comes from.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Chandigarh — Chandigarh is almost fully urban and does report slum settlements, but it is one planned city of roughly ten lakh people — an order of magnitude below Delhi's urban population.
(b)
Andaman and Nicobar Islands — The Andaman and Nicobar Islands had well under four lakh people in 2011 and no large urban centre, so the slum count there cannot come near Delhi's.
(c)
Puducherry — Puducherry is a small four-district UT whose whole population is a fraction of Delhi's, so its slum population is correspondingly small.

Concept

Census 2011 enumerated slums separately in towns and sorted them into three kinds.

Notified slums are areas declared as slums under an Act. Recognised slums are treated as slums by the authorities without that formal notification. Identified slums are compact settlements of at least 300 people, or about 60 to 70 households, of poorly built and congested tenements.

The exam question is comparative: which state, which Union Territory, which district tops or bottoms a Census table.

Watch the category the question names. Delhi is the answer because the field is restricted to Union Territories.

Widen it to states and the answer changes — Maharashtra recorded the largest slum population in Census 2011.

Key facts

Census 2011 classifies slums as notified, recognised or identified.
An identified slum is a compact area of at least 300 people or about 60 to 70 households in congested, poorly built tenements.
Delhi was the most populous Union Territory in Census 2011, with about 1.68 crore people.
Among states, Maharashtra recorded the largest slum population in Census 2011.

Study next

Census 2011 extremes for literacy, sex ratio and population density by stateThe three Census slum categories and the identified-slum definitionUnion Territories of India and which of them have a legislature

Common traps

Reading the question as being about states, where the answer would not be Delhi.
Assuming Chandigarh tops Union Territory tables because it is a planned city with strong per-capita indicators.

Census of India 2011 tables come back repeatedly in General Awareness, sometimes as a superlative and sometimes as a plain figure.

The male-female literacy gap, keyed to 16.68%, is asked at 12 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.17. The superlative form runs at 13 Sep 2024, 09:00, GA Q.2, on the Union Territories with the highest sex ratio, and at 18 Sep 2024, 16:00, GA Q.20, on the district with the highest population.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.