SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 18 September 2025, Shift 2 · General Awareness · Question 17 of 100

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 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 is a key economic role of the government in both developed and developing countries?

(a)Only regulating private firms
(b)Only promoting exports
(c)Framing laws and delivering justice
(d)Engaging in currency exchange

Answer

Why

Correct — C. Every government, in a rich country or a poor one, has to supply a legal framework: laws that define property and contracts, and courts that enforce them.

Markets depend on it. Firms cannot trade, lend or invest safely if agreements cannot be enforced, so framing laws and delivering justice is a role common to developed and developing economies → option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Only regulating private firms — The word 'Only' sinks it. Governments do regulate firms, but they also make laws, run courts, tax and spend, so regulation is not their sole economic role.
(b)
Only promoting exports — 'Only' again makes it false. Export promotion is one policy among many a government may follow, so it cannot be the government's single economic role.
(d)
Engaging in currency exchange — Currency exchange is a market activity carried out by banks and authorised dealers. A central bank may manage the exchange rate, but trading currency is not a core role of government.

Concept

Whatever a country's income, its government has to provide the legal framework a market economy runs on: laws, property rights, contract enforcement and courts to settle disputes.

Beyond that floor, governments supply public goods such as defence, correct market failures and redistribute income. How far they go varies from country to country. The legal framework is the part none can skip.

The stem is loosely worded, so let the options do the work. Two carry 'Only', which rules them out, and currency exchange is a market activity. What remains is the function no economy can do without.

Key facts

A mixed economy combines a public sector and a private sector.
Public goods such as national defence are supplied by government because markets under-provide them.
In India, foreign exchange is regulated under the Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999, administered by the Reserve Bank of India.

Study next

Public goods and market failureThe mixed economy and the roles of the public and private sectorsThe Reserve Bank of India's role in the foreign exchange market

Common traps

Picking 'Only regulating private firms' because regulation is a real government role: the word 'Only' makes the statement false.
Taking currency exchange as a government job because the RBI manages the rupee: managing a currency is not the same as trading it.

The state's basic economic role also sits behind 19 Sep 2025, 09:00, GA Q.19, which asks what a 'mixed economy' means (keyed: both private and public sectors).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Economic Scene — all 92 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.