SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 17 September 2025, Shift 2 · English Comprehension · Question 18 of 99

We transcribed this text from the pictures on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; the answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 13 September 2026.

Read the following passage and answer the questions based on the passage :
While financial inclusion is often praised as a driver of equitable growth, its implementation in rural India presents a paradox. On paper, schemes such as the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), Aadhaar-enabled payment systems, and mobile banking have revolutionized access. Yet, in practice, access does not necessarily translate into utility. A significant number of rural account holders remain dormant users, often constrained by digital illiteracy, infrastructural limitations, and deeply entrenched socio-cultural barriers. In numerous villages, banking correspondents (BCs)—the foot soldiers of India’s rural financial architecture—are overburdened, undertrained, and often unsupported by robust technological infrastructure. The notion that a biometric fingerprint or a one-time password could substitute for financial literacy is naïve at best. Many beneficiaries, especially women, face systemic exclusion, not just due to lack of documentation, but because patriarchal norms often discourage or control women’s interactions with banking services. Moreover, while financial inclusion aims to integrate the rural poor into the formal economy, the informal credit system continues to flourish. This coexistence is not accidental but symptomatic of a trust deficit and functional inefficiencies within formal institutions. Local moneylenders, albeit exploitative, offer immediacy and familiarity, elements often absent in bureaucratic banking processes. The digital push, accelerated post-2016 demonetization and COVID-19, has undoubtedly expanded the ecosystem. However, digital penetration without digital comprehension can widen the exclusion gap. Without focused digital education, grievance redressal mechanisms, and gender-sensitive outreach, financial inclusion may remain more rhetorical than real. In essence, true inclusion cannot be measured merely by the number of accounts opened but must reflect active participation, trust, and accessibility across gender, literacy, and regional lines. Until then, the dream of a financially empowered rural India will remain aspirational.

Why do informal credit systems persist despite formal financial inclusion efforts?

(a)Due to strict documentation
(b)Trust and familiarity of local lenders
(c)Higher interest rates attract borrowers
(d)Government incentives are unavailable

Answer

Why

Correct — B. The question asks why informal credit persists, and the passage answers in back-to-back sentences.

It calls the coexistence 'symptomatic of a trust deficit and functional inefficiencies within formal institutions'.

Then: 'Local moneylenders, albeit exploitative, offer immediacy and familiarity, elements often absent in bureaucratic banking processes.'

Trust that the banks lack and familiarity that the lenders offer → option (b).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Due to strict documentation — The passage mentions documentation once, for women excluded 'not just due to lack of documentation'. That is a shortage of papers, not strict rules, and it is never the reason informal credit flourishes.
(c)
Higher interest rates attract borrowers — Albeit exploitative is a concession: borrowers turn to moneylenders in spite of harsh terms, for immediacy and familiarity. The passage never mentions interest rates, let alone rates that attract borrowers.
(d)
Government incentives are unavailable — The passage names schemes such as PMJDY that 'revolutionized access' on paper. Its complaint is not missing government support but that access does not translate into use, and that formal banks face a trust deficit.

Concept

A why question is answered by the passage's own explanation. Find the claim first, here that 'the informal credit system continues to flourish', then read on for the cause the writer gives.

This writer gives it straight away: a trust deficit in formal institutions, and the immediacy and familiarity that moneylenders offer. The right option restates those words.

An option that brings in an outside cause, such as interest rates, fails even when it sounds economically sensible.

The passage never says in so many words that moneylenders are trusted. It says formal institutions suffer a trust deficit and that moneylenders offer familiarity, and option (b) joins the two. None of the other three options has any footing in the passage.

Key facts

The passage calls the coexistence of formal and informal credit 'symptomatic of a trust deficit and functional inefficiencies within formal institutions'.
Moneylenders are described as 'albeit exploitative' yet offering 'immediacy and familiarity'.
Albeit means although: it concedes a point without withdrawing the main claim.

Study next

Cause questions in reading comprehension: finding the sentence that explains a stated claimConcession markers such as albeit, although and despiteParaphrase matching: a trust deficit in banks restated as trust in local lenders

Common traps

Choosing higher interest rates because moneylenders are called exploitative — the passage says borrowers use them despite that, not because of it.
Picking documentation because the passage names it — it belongs to the sentence on women's exclusion, not to informal credit.

English Q.17 (the paradox of access without actual usage), Q.19 and Q.21 of this shift also use this financial-inclusion passage.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Reading comprehension — all 128 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.

Read the following passage and answer the questions based on the passage :
While financial inclusion is often praised as a driver of equitable growth, its implementation in rural India presents a paradox. On paper, schemes such as the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), Aadhaar-enabled payment systems, and mobile banking have revolutionized access. Yet, in practice, access does not necessarily translate into utility. A significant number of rural account holders remain dormant users, often constrained by digital illiteracy, infrastructural limitations, and deeply entrenched socio-cultural barriers. In numerous villages, banking correspondents (BCs)—the foot soldiers of India’s rural financial architecture—are overburdened, undertrained, and often unsupported by robust technological infrastructure. The notion that a biometric fingerprint or a one-time password could substitute for financial literacy is naïve at best. Many beneficiaries, especially women, face systemic exclusion, not just due to lack of documentation, but because patriarchal norms often discourage or control women’s interactions with banking services. Moreover, while financial inclusion aims to integrate the rural poor into the formal economy, the informal credit system continues to flourish. This coexistence is not accidental but symptomatic of a trust deficit and functional inefficiencies within formal institutions. Local moneylenders, albeit exploitative, offer immediacy and familiarity, elements often absent in bureaucratic banking processes. The digital push, accelerated post-2016 demonetization and COVID-19, has undoubtedly expanded the ecosystem. However, digital penetration without digital comprehension can widen the exclusion gap. Without focused digital education, grievance redressal mechanisms, and gender-sensitive outreach, financial inclusion may remain more rhetorical than real. In essence, true inclusion cannot be measured merely by the number of accounts opened but must reflect active participation, trust, and accessibility across gender, literacy, and regional lines. Until then, the dream of a financially empowered rural India will remain aspirational.