SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 17 September 2024, Shift 2 · General Awareness · Question 5 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.

On 29 th October 2020, the Ministry of Science and Technology launched the SERB- POWER Scheme. What is the objective of the scheme?

(a)To strengthen the solar programme of India with France
(b)To mitigate gender disparity in science and engineering research funding in various
(c)To allow reservation for women in the Parliament and Judiciary
(d)To allow reservation for women in the Ministry of Science and Technology

Answer

Why

Correct — B. SERB-POWER expands to Promoting Opportunities for Women in Exploratory Research, and its object is exactly what option (b) states: reducing gender disparity in science and engineering research funding.

The Science and Engineering Research Board runs it in two parts — a POWER Fellowship for women already leading research and POWER Research Grants for women running projects.

Note that the option is truncated in the paper, ending at 'in various'. The sense is still unambiguous, and no other option touches research funding.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
To strengthen the solar programme of India with France — Solar cooperation with France describes the International Solar Alliance, launched jointly by India and France at the Paris climate conference in 2015 — a different subject entirely.
(c)
To allow reservation for women in the Parliament and Judiciary — Reservation in Parliament is a constitutional-amendment question, not something a research board can grant. SERB funds research, it does not allocate seats.
(d)
To allow reservation for women in the Ministry of Science and Technology — Reservation inside a ministry is a service-rules matter. The scheme's instrument is a fellowship and a research grant, which is what a funding body issues.

Concept

SERB-POWER treats the gender gap in Indian science as a funding problem rather than an entry problem: women enter research in numbers but hold far fewer principal-investigator grants.

The scheme therefore reserves an application track for them instead of setting a quota. That is the distinction the wrong options are built to blur — a funding scheme is not a reservation policy.

The stem's own date, 29 October 2020, places the launch under the Ministry of Science and Technology, of which the Department of Science and Technology and its Science and Engineering Research Board are part.

Key facts

SERB-POWER stands for Promoting Opportunities for Women in Exploratory Research.
The scheme was launched on 29 October 2020 by the Ministry of Science and Technology.
It has two components, POWER Fellowships and POWER Research Grants.
The Science and Engineering Research Board is a statutory body under the Department of Science and Technology.

Study next

Other Department of Science and Technology women-in-science schemes, such as the KIRAN programmeThe International Solar Alliance, its founding at the 2015 Paris conference and its headquartersThe Anusandhan National Research Foundation and its relationship to SERB

Common traps

Reading 'gender disparity' as reservation, which is what options (c) and (d) exploit.
The option text in this paper is cut off mid-sentence, and candidates skip a truncated option assuming it is a misprint.

SSC asks a scheme's objective or its beneficiary group rather than its budget. The beneficiary form is asked on 10 Sep 2024, 16:00, GA Q.17, and the launch-year form on 12 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.3.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.