Read the following Assertion (A) and Reason (R) carefully and choose the correct option. Assertion (A): The IPR 1956 created an industrial classification into Schedules A, B, and C. Reason (R): This was to identify sectors for exclusive state control, joint sectors, and private sector operation.

Correct — A. The Industrial Policy Resolution of 30 April 1956 sorted industries into three categories by who would run them.

Schedule A: 17 industries, the exclusive responsibility of the State.
Schedule B: 12 industries, progressively State-owned, with private enterprise supplementing.
The rest: left to private initiative.

R gives the purpose of that sorting, so it explains A → option (a).

Why the others are wrong

• (b)
  Both A and R are true but R is not the correct explanation of A. — R is not a side fact. It states the purpose of the classification in A, which is exactly what 'correct explanation' asks for.
• (c)
  A is true but R is false. — R is true: the three categories match it — the State alone, the State with private enterprise supplementing, and private initiative.
• (d)
  A is false but R is true. — A is true as the key reads it: the 1956 Resolution did create a three-way classification of industries.

The Resolution followed Parliament's acceptance, in December 1954, of the socialist pattern of society as the objective of economic policy.

It held that industries of basic and strategic importance, and public utilities, should be in the public sector. Schedule A therefore included iron and steel, coal, mineral oils, railways, atomic energy and electricity.

Key facts

• Industrial Policy Resolution dated 30 April 1956, placed before Parliament by the Prime Minister that day.
• Schedule A: 17 industries whose future development was the exclusive responsibility of the State.
• Schedule B: 12 industries to be progressively State-owned, with private enterprise supplementing.
• The 1948 Resolution had already made arms and ammunition, atomic energy and railway transport Central Government monopolies.

Common traps

• Choosing (b) because R reads like a separate fact — R states why A's classification was made.
• Mixing up 1948 and 1956 — 1948 created Central monopolies in arms, atomic energy and railways, and 1956 the full three-way classification.

No directly related past PYQ was found.