UKPSC Prelims 2024 Q63: UTDB is established in Uttarakhand to promote

Q: What is the answer to UKPSC Prelims 2024 Q63?

B. Correct — B, Tourism. UTDB is the Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board, so the blank is **Tourism**. The Board was constituted under the Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board Act, 2001, within a year of the state's creation, as the apex body advising the government on tourism and as a regulatory and licensing authority for the sector. The idea to carry away is that **the T in UTDB stands for Tourism, not Technology**. The acronym names the sector the Board exists to promote, and its whole set-up — the Tourism Minister in the chair, the Chief Secretary as vice-chairman, headquarters in Dehradun — sits inside the tourism department.

UKPSC Prelims 2024 General Studies Paper-I · Question 63 of 147

Verified against the official question booklet. Answer as per UKPSC's provisional answer key.

Answers from UKPSC's provisional answer key. The Commission publishes a provisional key for UKPSC Prelims 2024 and invites objections before issuing a final key. Every answer shown here is the Commission's own provisional answer (key PDF), not our derivation. If the final key changes an answer, this page is updated to match.

UTDB is established in Uttarakhand to promote ______.

(a)Technology
(b)Tourism
(c)Trade
(d)Training

Answer

Why

Correct — B, Tourism.

UTDB is the Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board, so the blank is Tourism. The Board was constituted under the Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board Act, 2001, within a year of the state's creation, as the apex body advising the government on tourism and as a regulatory and licensing authority for the sector.

The idea to carry away is that the T in UTDB stands for Tourism, not Technology. The acronym names the sector the Board exists to promote, and its whole set-up — the Tourism Minister in the chair, the Chief Secretary as vice-chairman, headquarters in Dehradun — sits inside the tourism department.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Technology — Technology is the tempting expansion of the T, because 'development' pairs naturally with it.
The state's technology arm is a different body: the Information Technology Development Agency (ITDA), which works under the Department of IT, Good Governance & Science Technology to execute and monitor the state's IT projects.
UTDB's Act, chair and mandate are about tourism.
(c)
Trade — Trade and industry promotion in Uttarakhand sits on the industries side of government — the Directorate of Industries and SIDCUL, the State Infrastructure and Industrial Development Corporation of Uttarakhand, which develops and markets the state's industrial estates.
UTDB's business is destinations, tourist services and the licensing of tourism operators.
(d)
Training — Training is what an academy does, and the state's civil-service training institution is the Uttarakhand Academy of Administration at Nainital.
A 'Development Board' created by statute to advise government and license operators is a sector-promotion body, and the sector named in UTDB's Act is tourism.

Concept

A state 'development board' is a statutory body the legislature creates to give one sector a single apex authority. It advises the government, frames and implements policy for that sector, and often regulates or licenses operators in it. The acronym typically encodes the sector, so decoding it is the first step to answering.

Uttarakhand set up its tourism board this way in 2001, giving the new state one authority for a sector central to its economy.

Uttarakhand became a state on 9 November 2000, and the Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board Act followed in 2001.

Before that, tourism in the hills ran through two corporations formed under the Uttar Pradesh government — Kumaon Mandal Vikas Nigam (KMVN, 1971) and Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam (GMVN, 1976) — which still run rest houses and yatra packages.

So the state has a two-layer tourism set-up: the statutory Board in Dehradun for policy, promotion, regulation and licensing, and the two divisional corporations for services on the ground. Questions on Uttarakhand institutions test whether you can keep those layers, and their acronyms, apart.

Key facts

UTDB expands to Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board.
It was constituted under the Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board Act, 2001, which makes it a statutory body.
The Tourism Minister of Uttarakhand chairs the Board and the Chief Secretary is its vice-chairman.
It is described as the highest body advising the state government on tourism, and it also acts as a regulatory and licensing authority.
The Board is headquartered in Dehradun and runs the official portal uttarakhandtourism.gov.in.
Kumaon Mandal Vikas Nigam (KMVN) was formed in 1971 and Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam (GMVN) in 1976, each before Uttarakhand existed as a state.
The state's IT initiatives are handled by the Information Technology Development Agency (ITDA), under the Department of IT, Good Governance & Science Technology.

Uttarakhand bodies and the sector each promotes

UTDB — Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board (Act, 2001)→Tourism: policy, promotion, regulation, licensing

ITDA — Information Technology Development Agency→Information technology projects of the state

SIDCUL — state industrial development corporation→Industry and investment: industrial estates

Uttarakhand Academy of Administration, Nainital→Training of officers

GMVN (1976) and KMVN (1971)→Tourism services in Garhwal and Kumaon: rest houses, yatra packages

Same state, different acronyms: the T in UTDB is Tourism. GMVN and KMVN are the older service corporations; UTDB is the statutory apex board.

Study next

Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board Act, 2001 — composition and functionsGMVN and KMVN — origin, divisions they serve, and what they operateHomestay and yatra-management schemes run through Uttarakhand's tourism departmentOther Uttarakhand acronym bodies: ITDA, SIDCUL, SDRF and the Academy of Administration at Nainital

Common traps

Reading the T in UTDB as Technology because 'development' sounds technical; the acronym is Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board.
Treating UTDB as the same thing as GMVN or KMVN. The Board is the 2001 statutory apex body; the two Nigams are older corporations that run rest houses and packages.
Assuming the Chief Minister chairs the Board. The Tourism Minister is chairman and the Chief Secretary is vice-chairman.
Placing UTDB before statehood. It dates from 2001; KMVN (1971) and GMVN (1976) are the bodies that predate the state.

The idea appears as a fill-in-the-blank on the acronym, as a 'constituted under which Act or in which year' item, as 'who chairs the Board', or as a match-the-pairs set where UTDB, ITDA, SIDCUL and GMVN/KMVN are shuffled against their sectors.

Decoding the acronym settles the first form; the Act, its year and the Board's composition settle the rest.

Related PYQs

No eligible match among this question's citable set.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
The Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board was constituted under which of the following?
- (a)An executive order of the Government of Uttar Pradesh
- (b)The Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board Act, 2001
- (c)The Uttarakhand Tourism Policy
- (d)Registration as a company like GMVN and KMVN
Answerb — The Board is a statutory body created by the Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board Act, 2001, passed by the new state.
(a) fails because Uttar Pradesh had ceased to govern the area in November 2000 and the Board is a Uttarakhand creation. (c) fails because a policy document sets direction; it does not constitute a board.
(d) describes GMVN and KMVN, which are company-form corporations, whereas the Board rests on its own Act.
practice — not a real PYQ
Who is the chairman of the Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board?
- (a)The Governor of Uttarakhand
- (b)The Chief Minister of Uttarakhand
- (c)The Tourism Minister of Uttarakhand
- (d)The Chief Secretary of Uttarakhand
Answerc — The Tourism Minister chairs the Board. (d) is the vice-chairman, so it is the near-miss to recognise.
(b) is a guess from the Board's importance rather than from its Act. (a) fails because the Act places a minister, not the constitutional head of the state, in the chair.
practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following pairs of a Uttarakhand body and its field is correctly matched?
- (a)ITDA — Tourism
- (b)SIDCUL — Information technology
- (c)GMVN — Tourism
- (d)UTDB — Trade
Answerc — Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam is a state tourism corporation running rest houses and yatra services in the Garhwal division.
(a) swaps fields: ITDA is the Information Technology Development Agency. (b) swaps them too: SIDCUL is the industrial development corporation. (d) fails because UTDB is the Tourism Development Board, not a trade body.
practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following Uttarakhand bodies was formed before Uttarakhand became a state in November 2000?
- (a)Uttarakhand Tourism Development Board
- (b)Kumaon Mandal Vikas Nigam
- (c)Information Technology Development Agency
- (d)SIDCUL
Answerb — KMVN was formed in 1971 under the Uttar Pradesh government, long before statehood.
(a) fails because the Board was constituted under an Act of 2001. (c) and (d) fail because each is an agency of the Government of Uttarakhand and so came into being after the state did.