SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 17 September 2025, Shift 2 · English Comprehension · Question 19 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.

Which factor does not contribute to dormant rural bank accounts, as per the passage?

(a)Patriarchal social norms
(b)Digital illiteracy
(c)Mobile network expansion
(d)Lack of financial literacy

Answer

Why

Correct — C. This is a not question: confirm the options the passage names as holding account holders back, and keep the one it does not.

The dormancy sentence names 'digital illiteracy, infrastructural limitations, and deeply entrenched socio-cultural barriers'. Patriarchal norms are one such barrier, spelt out in the sentence on women.

The passage also calls it naïve to think a fingerprint or one-time password could substitute for financial literacy.

Mobile appears only as mobile banking, one of the things that 'revolutionized access' → option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Patriarchal social norms — Patriarchal norms 'often discourage or control' women's use of banking services, one of the socio-cultural barriers the passage blames. The passage treats them as a cause, so they cannot answer a not question.
(b)
Digital illiteracy — Digital illiteracy is the first constraint named in the very sentence about dormant account holders. A factor the passage lists cannot be the one that does not contribute.
(d)
Lack of financial literacy — The passage calls it 'naïve at best' to think a fingerprint or one-time password could substitute for financial literacy, so its absence is part of the problem the passage describes.

Concept

A not question reverses the usual search. Instead of hunting for the one supported option, you confirm three options against the passage and keep the one left over.

Tick each factor where the passage names it: digital illiteracy in the dormancy sentence, patriarchal norms in the sentence on women, financial literacy in the fingerprint-and-OTP sentence.

The survivor is the option the passage files under progress: mobile banking sits among the things that widened access, not among the constraints.

One sentence could mislead: 'digital penetration without digital comprehension can widen the exclusion gap.' The fault it names is the missing comprehension, not the spread of networks, and it speaks of the exclusion gap, not of dormant accounts.

Key facts

The passage says dormant rural users are 'often constrained by digital illiteracy, infrastructural limitations, and deeply entrenched socio-cultural barriers'.
Mobile banking is listed with PMJDY and Aadhaar-enabled payment systems as having 'revolutionized access'.
Patriarchal norms are said to 'often discourage or control' women's interactions with banking services.

Study next

Not and except questions: confirming three options before choosingSeparating what a passage presents as gains (access) from its constraints (use)Lists inside one sentence: each item is a separate stated factor

Common traps

Picking lack of financial literacy because the dormancy sentence speaks of digital, not financial, illiteracy — the fingerprint-and-OTP sentence makes financial literacy a problem too.
Rejecting mobile network expansion because of the line on digital penetration — that line blames the missing comprehension, not the network.

English Q.17, Q.18 and Q.21 of this shift also use this passage. Q.18 turns on the trust-deficit sentence and Q.21 on the sentence about patriarchal norms.

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.