SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 12 September 2025, Shift 1 · General Awareness · Question 12 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 11 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. From 2025 the candidate response sheet prints every question and option as a picture, so the text here is transcribed from those pictures for this shift and checked against them independently; where the layout carries meaning, the picture is shown as well. Each answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. SSC released a tentative key for challenge and later its final one, both only to candidates behind a login, and the sheet does not say which of the two it carries. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Which of the following objectives are part of the National Population Policy (NPP) 2000? 1. Providing free and compulsory education up to 14 years of age 2. Increasing fertility rate to ensure demographic dividend 3. Reducing infant mortality rate below 30 per 1000 live births 4. Promoting delayed marriage for girls

(a)Only 1 and 2 are correct
(b)Only 1 and 3 are correct
(c)Only 1, 3 and 4 are correct
(d)1,2,3 and 4 all are correct

Answer

Why

Correct — C. Box 2 of the policy, its National Socio-Demographic Goals for 2010, includes:
making school education up to age 14 free and compulsory
reducing IMR to below 30 per 1000 live births
promoting delayed marriage for girls, not earlier than 18 and preferably after 20.

Those are statements 1, 3 and 4. Statement 2 inverts the policy. NPP 2000 aimed to bring the TFR down to replacement level by 2010.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Only 1 and 2 are correct — It keeps the false statement 2 and drops two real goals: the IMR target below 30 and delayed marriage for girls.
(b)
Only 1 and 3 are correct — It stops short. Box 2 also lists delayed marriage for girls, not earlier than 18 and preferably after 20, so statement 4 belongs in the answer.
(d)
1,2,3 and 4 all are correct — Statement 2 is the reverse of the policy. NPP 2000 set a medium-term objective of bringing fertility down to replacement level, not raising it.

Concept

NPP 2000 sets three horizons. The immediate objective is to meet unmet needs for contraception, health infrastructure and personnel. The medium-term objective is replacement-level TFR by 2010. The long-term objective is a stable population by 2045.

Beneath these sit fourteen National Socio-Demographic Goals for 2010.

Beyond the three in this question, they include cutting maternal mortality below 100 per 100,000 live births, universal immunisation, and 100 per cent registration of births, deaths, marriages and pregnancies.

Replacement level in the policy's own projections is a TFR of 2.1, down from 3.3 in 1997. That direction, down and not up, is what statement 2 gets wrong.

Key facts

NPP 2000's long-term objective is a stable population by 2045.
Its medium-term objective was replacement-level TFR by 2010, projected in the policy as 2.1.
Its 2010 goals include IMR below 30 per 1000 live births and MMR below 100 per 100,000 live births.
It proposed a National Commission on Population presided over by the Prime Minister.

Study next

Replacement-level fertility and the demographic transitionIndia's national family planning programme, launched in 1952The National Commission on Population and state population commissions

Common traps

Linking the demographic dividend to higher fertility, when the policy works to lower it.
Dropping delayed marriage because it sounds like a social reform rather than a population goal.

Here the policy is tested by sorting real targets from a plausible-sounding false one.

Population also appears at 12 Sep 2024, 16:00, GA Q.25, on the Census 2011 share of adolescents, and a policy's age definition at 26 Sep 2024, 16:00, GA Q.19, on the National Youth Policy 2014.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: General Policy — all 171 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.