SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 18 September 2025, Shift 2 · General Awareness · Question 21 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.

Disinvestment involves selling stakes in?

(a)NGOs
(b)Private firms
(c)Public enterprises
(d)Trade unions

Answer

Why

Correct — C. Disinvestment is the government selling part or all of its equity in public sector enterprises to private investors or the public.

It can be a minority stake sale, where the government keeps control, or a strategic sale, where management control passes to the buyer. Either way the stake sold is in a public enterprise → option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
NGOs — NGOs are non-profit bodies with no government shareholding to sell. Disinvestment is about the government's equity in the enterprises it owns.
(b)
Private firms — Private firms are already private. Disinvestment is the government reducing its own stake in public enterprises, not investors trading shares of privately owned companies.
(d)
Trade unions — Trade unions are workers' associations, not companies that issue shares. There is no government stake in them to disinvest.

Concept

A central public sector enterprise is a company in which the Union government holds the majority of the shares. Disinvestment reduces that holding.

India began disinvestment with the 1991 reforms. Today the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM), under the Ministry of Finance, runs it. The proceeds are non-debt capital receipts in the Union Budget.

Disinvestment and privatisation overlap but are not the same. A minority stake sale is disinvestment without privatisation, because the government stays in control. A strategic sale that hands over control is both.

Key facts

Disinvestment is the sale of government equity in public sector enterprises.
DIPAM, under the Ministry of Finance, manages the government's disinvestment programme.
In a strategic sale, management control of the enterprise passes to the buyer.
Disinvestment proceeds are counted as non-debt capital receipts in the Union Budget.

Study next

Maharatna, Navratna and Miniratna status of public sector enterprisesStrategic sale compared with minority stake saleCapital receipts and revenue receipts in the Union Budget

Common traps

Equating every disinvestment with privatisation: a minority stake sale leaves the government in control.
Picking 'Private firms' because the buyers are private: the stake being sold is in a public enterprise.

Disinvestment is also asked at 19 Sep 2025, 09:00, GA Q.23, as an Assertion–Reason item keyed A true and R false, and at 19 Sep 2024, 12:30, GA Q.2, on the 2023-24 disinvestment target.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

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