SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 18 September 2024, Shift 2 · General Awareness · Question 19 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 10 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.

The Daroga system in 1792 was introduced by whom among the following Governor- Generals in India?

(a)Lord Minto
(b)Lord Cornwallis
(c)Lord Mayo
(d)Lord William Bentinck

Answer

Why

Correct — B. Lord Cornwallis was Governor-General from 1786 to 1793, and 1792 falls inside that tenure — no other name here is even in the right century.

He took policing away from the zamindars, divided each district into thanas or police circles, and put an Indian officer called a daroga in charge of each, answerable to the Company's district judge-magistrate.

That reorganisation is the daroga system, so option (b).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Lord Minto — Lord Minto was Governor-General from 1807 to 1813, fifteen years after 1792 — his tenure is remembered for the Treaty of Amritsar with Ranjit Singh in 1809.
(c)
Lord Mayo — Lord Mayo was Viceroy from 1869 to 1872, nearly eighty years too late, and is associated with the financial decentralisation resolution of 1870.
(d)
Lord William Bentinck — Lord William Bentinck governed from 1828 to 1835 and is remembered for the abolition of sati in 1829 and for English education, not for police reform.

Concept

Cornwallis rebuilt the Company's civil machinery on a single principle: separate the functions and staff the top of each with Europeans.

Revenue collection was split from judicial work, the collector lost his magistracy, and policing was taken out of zamindari hands and given to a salaried force of darogas under thanas.

The same tenure produced the Permanent Settlement of Bengal in 1793 and the Cornwallis Code, which is why 1786-1793 is the densest stretch of dates in this chapter.

British police history in India then runs forward from here to the Police Act of 1861, which followed the Police Commission of 1860 and gave the provinces the structure still recognisable today.

Key facts

Cornwallis was Governor-General of Bengal from 1786 to 1793.
He removed policing from the zamindars and placed each district's thanas under a daroga.
The Cornwallis Code of 1793 separated revenue collection from judicial administration.
The Permanent Settlement of Bengal was concluded in 1793, in the same tenure.

Study next

The Permanent Settlement of 1793 and its effect on zamindarsThe Police Act of 1861 and the modern provincial police structureGovernor-General and Viceroy tenures from 1786 to 1858

Common traps

Reaching for Bentinck because his name attaches to most early reforms.
Forgetting that Mayo and Minto belong to the Crown and later Company periods, well after 1792.

These items are decided by tenure dates before any knowledge of the reform itself is needed.

Also asked 10 Sep 2024, 09:00, GA Q7 (the Governor-General who helped abolish sati), 13 Sep 2024, 09:00, GA Q21 (the Doctrine of Lapse and its author) and 12 Sep 2024, 16:00, GA Q11 (the Viceroy in office during the Dandi March).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.