SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 24 September 2025, Shift 2 · General Awareness · Question 23 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 13 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.

The lead bank scheme was introduced in which year?

(a)1969
(b)1975
(c)1980
(d)1990

Answer

Why

Correct — A. The Reserve Bank introduced the Lead Bank Scheme in December 1969.

It followed two reports of that year. The Gadgil Study Group (October 1969) proposed an 'area approach' to rural banking, and the Nariman Committee (November 1969) asked each bank to act as lead bank in certain districts → option (a).

Why the others are wrong

(b)
1975 — 1975 is the year the first Regional Rural Banks opened, on 2 October 1975. By then the Lead Bank Scheme was nearly six years old.
(c)
1980 — 1980 brought the second round of bank nationalisation, when six more banks were taken over. The Lead Bank Scheme predates it by more than ten years.
(d)
1990 — 1990 is two decades late. The nearest landmark is the Service Area Approach of April 1989, which gave each rural and semi-urban branch its own villages.

Concept

Under the Lead Bank Scheme one bank is made the lead bank of a district. It coordinates the banks and government agencies there, prepares credit plans, and convenes forums such as the District Consultative Committee.

The scheme came in 1969, the year 14 major banks were nationalised on 19 July, when the push was to take banking into rural India.

Do not confuse the scheme's 1969 start with the Service Area Approach of April 1989, a later plan that allotted villages to individual branches.

Key facts

The Lead Bank Scheme was introduced by the RBI in December 1969.
The Gadgil Study Group reported in October 1969 and recommended the area approach.
The Nariman Committee reported in November 1969 and proposed that each bank act as lead bank in certain districts.
Fourteen banks were nationalised on 19 July 1969, and the first Regional Rural Banks opened on 2 October 1975.

Study next

Bank nationalisation of 1969 and 1980Regional Rural Banks and the RRB Act, 1976The Service Area Approach and priority-sector lending

Common traps

Linking 'lead bank' with the 1975 Regional Rural Banks because both are rural-credit reforms. The scheme came nearly six years earlier.
Picking 1980 for the second nationalisation. The first round and the Lead Bank Scheme share 1969.

Asked here as a bare year, with the dates of later rural-banking landmarks as the wrong options.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: General Policy — all 308 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.