UKPSC Prelims 2025 Q146: Arrange the following social welfare schemes in

Q: What is the answer to UKPSC Prelims 2025 Q146?

B. Correct — B, i, iv, iii, ii. Put a launch year against each name and the chain settles itself. IRDP came first, introduced in 1978-79 in selected blocks and extended to every development block from 2 October 1980. RLEGP followed on 15 August 1983, aimed at households that depend on landless agricultural labour. PMRY came on 2 October 1993, offering educated unemployed youth credit to set up self-employment ventures. REGP came last, in 1995, run by the Khadi and Village Industries Commission to finance village-industry units. Reading the numerals off that sequence gives **i, iv, iii, ii**. The idea to carry away: **date a scheme by its launch, not by the decade its name sounds like**. REGP's title echoes the wage-employment family of the 1980s, but it belongs to the mid-1990s enterprise stream.

UKPSC Prelims 2025 General Studies Paper-I · Question 146 of 149

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Answers from UKPSC's provisional answer key. The Commission publishes a provisional key for UKPSC Prelims 2025 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.

Arrange the following social welfare schemes in chronological order: i. Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP) ii. Rural Employment Generation Programme (REGP) iii. Prime Minister Rojgar Yojana (PMRY) iv. Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Programme (RLEGP)

(a)ii, i, iv, iii
(b)i, iv, iii, ii
(c)iii, ii, i, iv
(d)iv, iii, ii, i

Answer

Why

Correct — B, i, iv, iii, ii.

Put a launch year against each name and the chain settles itself. IRDP came first, introduced in 1978-79 in selected blocks and extended to every development block from 2 October 1980.

RLEGP followed on 15 August 1983, aimed at households that depend on landless agricultural labour. PMRY came on 2 October 1993, offering educated unemployed youth credit to set up self-employment ventures.

REGP came last, in 1995, run by the Khadi and Village Industries Commission to finance village-industry units. Reading the numerals off that sequence gives i, iv, iii, ii.

The idea to carry away: date a scheme by its launch, not by the decade its name sounds like. REGP's title echoes the wage-employment family of the 1980s, but it belongs to the mid-1990s enterprise stream.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
ii, i, iv, iii — The tail of this option is right — IRDP, then RLEGP, then PMRY is the correct run — but it lifts REGP to the front. REGP dates from 1995, later than the other three, so it cannot open the chain.
The sequence would fit a list whose first item was an early-1970s employment scheme such as the Crash Scheme for Rural Employment, followed by IRDP, RLEGP and PMRY.
(c)
iii, ii, i, iv — This is two correctly ordered pairs placed the wrong way round. PMRY (1993) does precede REGP (1995), and IRDP (1978-79) does precede RLEGP (1983) — but the second pair is a decade older and belongs first.
Grouped by decade the pairing is real: PMRY and REGP are the 1990s pair, IRDP and RLEGP the 1978-83 pair — but by type they split differently, IRDP being self-employment and RLEGP wage-employment.
(d)
iv, iii, ii, i — RLEGP, PMRY and REGP are in the right order here, but IRDP is parked at the end, after 1995. IRDP is the oldest of the four, introduced in 1978-79.
The order would be right if the last item were IRDP's successor rather than IRDP itself: Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana, which took over from IRDP on 1 April 1999 — that is, after REGP.

Concept

India's rural poverty programmes run in two streams. Self-employment schemes give a beneficiary credit, subsidy and training to acquire an asset or start an enterprise, and the asset is meant to carry the income.

Wage-employment schemes pay for labour on public works, so the wage itself is the transfer and the asset created is a by-product.

IRDP, PMRY and REGP sit in the first stream; RLEGP sits in the second. Placing a scheme in its stream and its Plan period is what makes a chronology item answerable.

These four schemes span a shift in approach. IRDP and RLEGP belong to the household-targeted anti-poverty drive that ran from the late 1970s; PMRY and REGP belong to the 1990s turn towards enterprise, credit and village industry.

Where a scheme ends matters as much as where it starts, because successors carry the older names forward. RLEGP went into Jawahar Rozgar Yojana in 1989, IRDP into SGSY in 1999, and PMRY and REGP into PMEGP in 2008.

Key facts

IRDP was introduced in 1978-79 in selected blocks and extended to all development blocks from 2 October 1980.
IRDP worked through subsidised bank credit so that a poor household could acquire an income-generating asset.
RLEGP was launched on 15 August 1983 to expand employment for households dependent on landless agricultural labour.
RLEGP was merged with the National Rural Employment Programme to form Jawahar Rozgar Yojana in April 1989.
PMRY, the Prime Minister's Rozgar Yojana — printed in this stem as Prime Minister Rojgar Yojana — was launched on 2 October 1993 for educated unemployed youth.
REGP, launched in 1995, was implemented by the Khadi and Village Industries Commission to set up village-industry units.
IRDP and allied programmes were restructured into the Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana from 1 April 1999.
PMRY and REGP were merged into the Prime Minister's Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP) in 2008.

The four schemes by launch date

i. IRDP→1978-79; all blocks from 2 October 1980

iv. RLEGP→15 August 1983; employment for the rural landless

iii. PMRY→2 October 1993; self-employment for educated youth

ii. REGP→1995; KVIC village-industry units

Reading the numerals down this column gives i, iv, iii, ii — option b. The highlighted rows are the two ends of the chain: IRDP the oldest, REGP the newest.

Study next

Sixth and Seventh Plan employment programmes: NREP, RLEGP and their merger into Jawahar Rozgar YojanaSwarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (1999) and its successor, the National Rural Livelihoods MissionPMEGP and the merger of PMRY with REGP under the Khadi and Village Industries CommissionMGNREGA, 2005 and the move from a scheme to a statutory guarantee of employmentSelf-employment versus wage-employment programmes: how the two streams transfer income differently

Common traps

Reading REGP as an older scheme because 'Rural Employment' echoes the 1980s wage-employment names; it is a 1995 KVIC village-industry programme.
Dating IRDP by its 1999 restructuring into SGSY instead of by its 1978-79 launch, which sends it to the end of the chain.
Confusing PMRY, the Prime Minister's Rozgar Yojana of 1993, with PMEGP of 2008 or with Pradhan Mantri Gramodaya Yojana of 2000.
Treating a correctly ordered run inside an option as evidence for the option as a whole: a, c and d each contain one, so the chain has to hold end to end.
Anchoring on 15 August or 2 October as launch dates for the wrong scheme — RLEGP took 15 August 1983, PMRY took 2 October 1993.

The idea arrives as a four-item chronology with numerals to be ordered, as a scheme-and-year matching pair, or as a plain 'which of these came first'.

It also runs in reverse: naming the successor a scheme was folded into, or asking which older programmes a given merger replaced.

A statement-based version tests what the scheme did rather than when it began — whether it was self-employment or wage-employment, and which ministry or body implemented it.

Related PYQs

UPPSC_2024_PRE_GSI_Q72024

The closest match in the set: the same chronology device and two of the same schemes, REGP and PMRY. Their 1993-and-1995 order is the discriminating step there, where one option alone puts PMRY ahead of REGP; here it rules out option a, because b, c and d all keep PMRY first. That question extends into the 2000s with Pradhan Mantri Gramodaya Yojana and Valmiki Ambedkar Awas Yojana, while ours stays inside 1978-1995 and adds IRDP and RLEGP.

UPPSC_2024_PRE_GSI_Q1142024

Shares IRDP as the opening item and the same task of ordering rural schemes. Its span is far wider — IRDP in 1978-79, SGSY in 1999, NREGA in 2005, Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana in 2014 — so it opens with a two-decade gap, though the later ones close to about six and nine years. Ours packs PMRY and REGP two years apart.

UPPSC_2025_PRE_GSI_Q1342025

The same instrument on the same programme family, but drawn entirely from the pre-1990 period — Community Development Programme, Drought Prone Area Programme, TRYSEM and Food for Work. No item overlaps with ours; what carries across is the habit of fixing a launch year to each rural programme.

CAPF_GAI_2022_Q542022

Touches IRDP, but through a different door. It asks which statement is not correct about a set of rural and urban schemes, testing what each programme was and what it was restructured into, whereas ours turns purely on launch dates.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following pairs of scheme and year of launch is correctly matched?
- (a)Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Programme — 1983
- (b)Prime Minister's Rozgar Yojana — 1995
- (c)Rural Employment Generation Programme — 1993
- (d)Integrated Rural Development Programme — 1989
Answera — RLEGP was launched on 15 August 1983.
Options b and c have simply exchanged their years: PMRY came on 2 October 1993, REGP in 1995. Option d gives 1989, the year Jawahar Rozgar Yojana was formed, whereas IRDP dates from 1978-79.
practice — not a real PYQ
The Prime Minister's Rozgar Yojana (PMRY) and the Rural Employment Generation Programme (REGP) were merged in 2008 to form which one of the following?
- (a)Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana
- (b)Prime Minister's Employment Generation Programme
- (c)Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana
- (d)National Rural Livelihoods Mission
Answerb — PMEGP was created in 2008 by merging PMRY and REGP, and is implemented through the Khadi and Village Industries Commission.
Option a, SGSY, came in 1999 out of IRDP and its allied programmes. Option c, SGRY, is a wage-employment programme of 2001. Option d, NRLM, is the later restructuring of SGSY.
practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following was launched earliest?
- (a)Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Programme
- (b)Prime Minister's Rozgar Yojana
- (c)Rural Employment Generation Programme
- (d)Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana
Answera — RLEGP dates from 15 August 1983, ahead of the other three.
PMRY in option b came on 2 October 1993, REGP in option c in 1995, and SGSY in option d on 1 April 1999. The four happen to be listed in ascending order of launch.
practice — not a real PYQ
The Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Programme was merged with the National Rural Employment Programme in 1989 to form which one of the following?
- (a)Employment Assurance Scheme
- (b)Jawahar Gram Samridhi Yojana
- (c)Jawahar Rozgar Yojana
- (d)Integrated Rural Development Programme
Answerc — Jawahar Rozgar Yojana was formed in April 1989 by merging NREP and RLEGP into a single wage-employment programme.
Option a, the Employment Assurance Scheme, was a separate launch of 1993. Option b, JGSY, is the 1999 restructuring of JRY, so it comes after this merger rather than from it. Option d, IRDP, was already running from 1978-79 and belongs to the self-employment stream.