UPPSC 2022 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 52 of 150

Correct — A, A-2, B-1, C-4, D-3. Taken pair by pair: the National Rural Health Mission was launched on 12 April 2005 by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, initially for eighteen states with weak public-health indicators, so A goes to 2 (2005). The National Social Assistance Programme was launched in 1995, originally with three components — the National Old Age Pension Scheme, the National Family Benefit Scheme and the National Maternity Benefit Scheme — so B goes to 1 (1995). The Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana was launched in 1999, restructuring the old Integrated Rural Development Programme and its allied schemes into a single self-employment programme, so C goes to 4 (1999). The Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana was announced by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on 15 August 2001 and launched on 25 September 2001, merging the Employment Assurance Scheme with the Jawahar Gram Samridhi Yojana, so D goes to 3 (2001). That is exactly the code in option (a).

• (b)A-1, B-2, C-3, D-4 — This is the unshuffled code — A to 1, B to 2, C to 3, D to 4 — and every one of its four pairs is wrong. It would date the National Rural Health Mission to 1995, the National Social Assistance Programme to 2005, the Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana to 2001 and the Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana to 1999. In match-list questions the straight-down code is placed on the paper for candidates who are guessing; it is rarely the answer, and it is not the answer here.
• (c)A-4, B-2, C-1, D-3 — Only the last pair is right. It dates the National Rural Health Mission to 1999, which is six years too early; the National Social Assistance Programme to 2005, which is ten years too late; and the Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana to 1995, which is four years too early. Only D-3, the Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana in 2001, survives. Fixing the single fact that the NRHM belongs to 2005 kills this option outright.
• (d)A-2, B-4, C-1, D-3 — The strongest distractor on the paper, because it agrees with the key on both the pairs a candidate is most likely to be sure of — A-2 (NRHM in 2005) and D-3 (SGRY in 2001) — and differs only on the middle two. It swaps B and C, dating the National Social Assistance Programme to 1999 and the Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana to 1995. Both are wrong: NSAP is a 1995 programme and SGSY a 1999 one. The whole question therefore turns on knowing which of those two came first, and the memory hook is that SGSY was itself created out of the older IRDP family in 1999, four years AFTER the NSAP had already begun paying old-age pensions.

The four items belong to three different families of rural policy and were introduced by three different governments, which is why their dates spread across a decade. The National Social Assistance Programme (1995) is social security — non-contributory pensions and lump-sum benefits for the aged, widows, the disabled and bereaved families below the poverty line, and it flows directly from Article 41 of the Directive Principles. The Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (1999) is self-employment — it consolidated the Integrated Rural Development Programme and several allied schemes into one programme built around self-help groups, and it was itself later restructured into the National Rural Livelihoods Mission. The Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana (2001) is wage employment — food-for-work and rural infrastructure, merging the Employment Assurance Scheme and the Jawahar Gram Samridhi Yojana, and it was in turn subsumed into the NREGA regime after 2005. The National Rural Health Mission (2005) is health-system reform, and its best-known instrument is the ASHA, the accredited social health activist placed in each village.

The efficient way to attack a launch-year match list is not to recall four dates but to recall the sequence of governments and the logic of consolidation. The mid-1990s produced social security (NSAP, 1995). The end of the 1990s produced the great consolidation of self-employment schemes (SGSY, 1999). The turn of the century produced the consolidation of wage-employment schemes (SGRY, 2001). And 2005, the first flush of the UPA's rights-based phase, produced both the NREGA and the NRHM. Once that narrative is in place, a candidate can reconstruct all four pairs from the direction of policy rather than from rote. The examiner's own trap confirms this: options (a) and (d) agree on the two easy pairs and split on NSAP versus SGSY, so the mark is decided entirely by whether social security or self-employment came first.

• National Rural Health Mission — launched 12 April 2005; ASHA workers are its village-level cadre; it was later folded into the National Health Mission alongside the urban mission.
• National Social Assistance Programme — launched 1995 with three original components: the National Old Age Pension Scheme, the National Family Benefit Scheme and the National Maternity Benefit Scheme.
• Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana — launched 1999, replacing the Integrated Rural Development Programme and allied schemes with a single self-help-group-based self-employment programme.
• Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana — announced 15 August 2001 and launched 25 September 2001, merging the Employment Assurance Scheme with the Jawahar Gram Samridhi Yojana.
• The correct code is A-2, B-1, C-4, D-3; the decisive comparison is NSAP (1995) against SGSY (1999), which is where options (a) and (d) part company.

• Choosing the straight-down code A-1, B-2, C-3, D-4 when unsure. It is the standard decoy in match-list questions and here it gets all four pairs wrong.
• Swapping NSAP and SGSY. This is the exact difference between the correct option (a) and the near-miss option (d): NSAP is 1995 and SGSY is 1999, not the other way round.
• Confusing the year a scheme was announced with the year it was launched. SGRY was announced on 15 August 2001 and launched on 25 September 2001 — the same year, so it does not bite here, but the same trap does bite for schemes announced in one financial year and rolled out in the next.

This is one of UPPSC's most predictable formats: a four-item scheme list against four years, or the same four schemes to be arranged in chronological order. The commission ran a scheme-versus-launch-year match list in 2020, a chronological ordering of central schemes in 2024 and again in 2025, and a Yojana-versus-date-of-launch match list in 2024. UPSC prefers to test the same schemes through their content — what ASHA workers do, what the minimum wage rule under NREGA is — rather than through dates. The preparation that serves both is one table per scheme: launch year, ministry, what it replaced and what replaced it.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana, launched in 1999, was formed by restructuring which of the following ?

  • (a)The Employment Assurance Scheme and the Jawahar Gram Samridhi Yojana
  • (b)The Integrated Rural Development Programme and its allied schemes
  • (c)The National Old Age Pension Scheme and the National Family Benefit Scheme
  • (d)The Minimum Needs Programme and the Desert Development Programme

  Answer(b) The Integrated Rural Development Programme and its allied schemes — SGSY merged IRDP, TRYSEM, DWCRA and related programmes into a single self-employment scheme built on self-help groups. The Employment Assurance Scheme and Jawahar Gram Samridhi Yojana were merged instead into the Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana in 2001.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following was NOT one of the three original components of the National Social Assistance Programme launched in 1995 ?

  • (a)National Old Age Pension Scheme
  • (b)National Family Benefit Scheme
  • (c)National Maternity Benefit Scheme
  • (d)Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana

  Answer(d) Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana — it is a wage-employment programme launched separately in 2001. NSAP began in 1995 with the old-age pension, family-benefit and maternity-benefit schemes.