SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 18 September 2024, Shift 1 · General Awareness · Question 4 of 99

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 the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways’ annual report (2020-2021), which position does India have in terms of road networks in the world?

(a)Third
(b)First
(c)Second
(d)Fourth

Answer

Why

Correct — C. India's road network is the second largest in the world, and that is the position the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways states in its annual reports, including the 2020-21 report the stem names. Only the United States has a larger network.

The figure is a total of every class of road — National Highways, state highways, major district roads, and the very large rural and urban network beneath them.

It is that rural bulk, not the highway system, that puts India second.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Third — Third is one rank low. The ministry's own count, on total road length across all categories, places India second rather than third.
(b)
First — First belongs to the United States, which has the world's largest road network. The report claims for India the position immediately below it.
(d)
Fourth — Fourth is the furthest of the four from the report. Nothing in the ministry's annual report places the Indian network below second on total road length.

Concept

This is a rank-from-an-official-report item, and the report is named in the stem — so the answer is what the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways publishes, not what a general guess suggests.

Road length in India is counted in layers: National Highways, built and maintained centrally and largely through NHAI; state highways; major district roads; and the rural network built under schemes such as PMGSY.

Adding every layer is what produces a network second only to that of the United States.

The stem pins its claim to the 2020-21 annual report. Total road length grows every year, so quote the rank the report gives rather than a remembered length.

Key facts

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways describes India's road network as the second largest in the world.
The United States has the largest road network in the world.
Most of India's road length is district and rural road, not National Highway.
Rural road length is added largely through the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, launched in 2000.

Study next

National Highways Authority of India and how National Highways are fundedPradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana and rural connectivity targetsGolden Quadrilateral and the North-South and East-West corridors

Common traps

Reading 'road network' as 'National Highways' invites the wrong rank, because the report's figure is total road length of every category.
The stem asks for a rank stated in a named report, so a candidate reasoning from area or population is answering a different question.

Transport statistics come back as rank, share and density questions.

Road density by state is asked on 19 Sep 2024, 09:00, GA Q.25, and the share of passenger traffic carried by road on 24 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.12.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.