UPPSC 2024 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 114 of 150

Correct — A, 1, 2, 3, 4. The four schemes are already listed in the order in which they were launched, which is why the plain sequence is the answer. The Integrated Rural Development Programme came first: it was introduced in 1978-79 and taken to every development block in the country in 1980, and it became the flagship anti-poverty programme of the Sixth Five Year Plan, giving families below the poverty line subsidised bank credit to buy an income-generating asset. The Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana followed in 1999, replacing IRDP as the government's single rural self-employment programme and shifting the method from the individual beneficiary to the self-help group; it was itself restructured as the National Rural Livelihood Mission in 2011. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act came third: it was passed by the Lok Sabha on 23 August 2005 and the Rajya Sabha on 25 August 2005, received assent on 5 September 2005, came into force on 2 February 2006 in a first phase of districts and covered all rural districts from 1 April 2008. The Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana is the most recent, launched by the Prime Minister on 28 August 2014 as the National Mission on Financial Inclusion. Two anchors settle the question without reciting all four dates: IRDP is unmistakably the oldest, and only option (a) begins with it.

• (b)3, 4, 1, 2 — Puts the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (2005) first and the Integrated Rural Development Programme (1978-79) third. IRDP belongs to the Janata-era and Sixth-Plan push on rural poverty and predates NREGA by about a quarter of a century, so no ordering that starts with NREGA can be right.
• (c)2, 3, 4, 1 — Places IRDP last of all, after Jan-Dhan. This is the mirror-image error — it reads the list as though the numbering ran newest to oldest. In fact SGSY (1999) exists only because IRDP was wound into it, so IRDP must come before SGSY, not after Jan-Dhan.
• (d)4, 3, 1, 2 — Starts with the newest scheme, Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana (2014), and works partly backwards. It is a tempting shape for a candidate who half-remembers that Jan-Dhan is the famous one, but the question asks for chronological order, and 2014 is the end of this sequence, not the beginning.

India's rural anti-poverty architecture has moved through three distinct methods, and the four items in this list are one from each phase plus a financial-inclusion coda. The first method was the subsidised asset: IRDP handed a poor household a loan-plus-subsidy package to buy a buffalo, a rickshaw or a sewing machine. The second was the group: SGSY organised the rural poor into self-help groups and worked through them, an approach carried further by the National Rural Livelihood Mission. The third was the legal entitlement: NREGA turned relief work from a discretionary programme into a statutory right to a hundred days of unskilled manual work. Jan-Dhan then supplied the plumbing all three now depend on — a bank account for every household, through which benefits are transferred directly.

Chronology questions are answered fastest from the ends, not from the middle. Identify the oldest item and the newest item, and check which code opens and closes correctly; here IRDP at one end and Jan-Dhan at the other are both easy, and (a) is the only code that respects either. The examiner's trap is the familiarity gradient — Jan-Dhan and MGNREGA are household names while IRDP is a programme most candidates have only read about, so the instinct is to put the familiar ones first. Two of the three wrong codes are built on exactly that instinct. A second useful habit for this family of questions is to remember which scheme replaced which: IRDP was merged away into SGSY in 1999, and SGSY became the National Rural Livelihood Mission (Aajeevika) in 2011, later Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana - NRLM. A replacement chain gives you the order for free.

• Integrated Rural Development Programme — introduced in 1978-79 and extended to all development blocks in the country in 1980; a self-employment programme giving below-poverty-line families subsidised credit for income-generating assets, and the centrepiece of Sixth Plan poverty policy.
• Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana — launched in 1999 (with effect from April 1999) as the single rural self-employment programme in place of IRDP, working through self-help groups. It was renamed the National Rural Livelihood Mission in 2011.
• National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 — passed by the Lok Sabha on 23 August 2005 and the Rajya Sabha on 25 August 2005, assented to on 5 September 2005, in force from 2 February 2006, extended to all rural districts from 1 April 2008; renamed MGNREGA in 2009. It guarantees 100 days of unskilled manual work per rural household per financial year as a statutory entitlement, not a Fundamental Right.
• Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana — launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 28 August 2014 as the National Mission on Financial Inclusion. It holds a Guinness World Record for the most bank accounts opened in a week: 1,80,96,130 accounts between 23 and 29 August 2014.

• Dating NREGA to 2006 because that is when it came into force. The Act is of 2005 — assent 5 September 2005 — and it is dated 2005 in its own title, which is how a chronology question will treat it.
• Confusing the launch of a scheme with its renaming. SGSY became NRLM in 2011 and NREGA became MGNREGA in 2009; neither renaming creates a new launch date.
• Ordering by fame rather than by date. IRDP is the least famous of these four and the oldest by a wide margin, and two of the three wrong codes exploit precisely that.

UPPSC likes the bare chronology code — four schemes, four permutations — and expects only the ordering, not the exact dates; UPSC asks the same schemes as purpose and eligibility questions ('Jan-Dhan has been launched for...', 'who are eligible to benefit from MGNREGA'). So learn one launch year and one signature feature per scheme and you are covered for both.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana, launched in 1999, replaced which earlier self-employment programme?

  • (a)Jawahar Rozgar Yojana
  • (b)Integrated Rural Development Programme
  • (c)National Rural Employment Programme
  • (d)Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana

  Answer(b) Integrated Rural Development Programme — SGSY took over from IRDP as the single rural self-employment programme in 1999 and was itself restructured as the National Rural Livelihood Mission in 2011. The other three named here are wage-employment programmes, not self-employment ones.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Consider the following statements about the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005: 1. It gives a statutory guarantee of 100 days of unskilled manual work in a financial year to every rural household whose adult members volunteer for it. 2. It came into force in all the rural districts of the country on the same day. Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

  • (a)1 only
  • (b)2 only
  • (c)Both 1 and 2
  • (d)Neither 1 nor 2

  Answer(a) 1 only — the 100-day guarantee is a statutory entitlement of every rural household that demands work. But the Act was rolled out in phases from 2 February 2006 and reached all rural districts only on 1 April 2008, so statement 2 is wrong.