SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 18 September 2024, Shift 2 · General Awareness · Question 24 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 Drought Prone Area Programme (DPAP) for providing employment to people in drought prone areas was started by the Government of India during the _______.

(a)Fourth Five-Year Plan
(b)Seventh Five-Year Plan
(c)Third Five-Year Plan
(d)Sixth Five-Year Plan

Answer

Why

Correct — A. The Drought Prone Areas Programme was launched in 1973, which falls inside the Fourth Five-Year Plan (1969-74).

It was an area-based programme for chronically drought-prone blocks, creating employment through works that also built drought resistance — soil and moisture conservation, water harvesting and afforestation.

Fix the launch year and the plan follows, which gives option (a).

Why the others are wrong

(b)
Seventh Five-Year Plan — The Seventh Plan ran 1985-90, by which time DPAP had been operating for over a decade.
(c)
Third Five-Year Plan — The Third Plan ended in 1966 and was followed by three annual plans, the plan holiday of 1966-69 — DPAP does not exist yet at that point.
(d)
Sixth Five-Year Plan — The Sixth Plan ran 1980-85 and is the era of the newer rural employment schemes, not of DPAP's launch.

Concept

Indian rural development schemes divide along one line worth memorising.

An area approach treats a defined tract as the unit — DPAP for drought-prone blocks, the Desert Development Programme for arid ones, the Hill Areas Development Programme for the hills.

A target group approach picks a class of people instead, as the Small Farmers Development Agency and the Marginal Farmers Development Agency did. DPAP belongs to the first family.

DPAP was later merged with the Desert Development Programme and the Integrated Wastelands Development Programme into the Integrated Watershed Management Programme, so a current-affairs answer and a history answer can differ.

Key facts

DPAP was launched in 1973, during the Fourth Five-Year Plan (1969-74).
It is an area-based programme run by the Ministry of Rural Development for chronically drought-prone blocks.
Its works centre on soil and moisture conservation, water harvesting and afforestation.
DPAP, the Desert Development Programme and the Integrated Wastelands Development Programme were merged into the Integrated Watershed Management Programme.

Study next

Area approach versus target group approach in rural developmentThe Five-Year Plans by their years and their signature programmesWatershed programmes and their consolidation into the Integrated Watershed Management Programme

Common traps

Guessing a later plan because the scheme still exists in some form today.
Mixing DPAP up with the target-group agencies for small and marginal farmers.

Plan questions come as a scheme-to-plan or a slogan-to-plan match, so the plan years are the thing to hold.

Also asked 25 Sep 2024, 16:00, GA Q25 (which scheme belongs to the target group approach, with DPAP among the options), 10 Sep 2024, 09:00, GA Q5 (the plan of Garibi Hatao) and 11 Sep 2024, 16:00, GA Q23 (the plan built on the Mahalanobis model).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.