Consider the following events and arrange them in correct chronological order starting from the earliest to the last activity : 1. Pradhan Mantri Gramodaya Yojana 2. Rural Employment Generation Programme 3. Prime Minister Rozgar Yojana 4. Valmiki Ambedkar Awas Yojana Select the correct answer from the codes given below :
- (a)2, 3, 4, 1
- (b)4, 2, 1, 3
- (c)1, 2, 3, 4
- (d)3, 2, 1, 4
Correct — D, 3, 2, 1, 4. Taken in order of launch: (3) the Prime Minister's Rozgar Yojana came first, started in 1993 as a credit-linked self-employment scheme for educated unemployed youth; (2) the Rural Employment Generation Programme followed in 1995, run by the Khadi and Village Industries Commission, which gave margin-money assistance for setting up village industry units in rural areas; (1) the Pradhan Mantri Gramodaya Yojana was launched in 2000-01 in all the States and Union Territories, as Additional Central Assistance earmarked for basic needs in rural areas; and (4) the Valmiki Ambedkar Awas Yojana came last, launched in December 2001 to improve the shelter and living conditions of urban slum dwellers. So the sequence 1993 → 1995 → 2000-01 → December 2001 gives 3, 2, 1, 4. The dates here are not from a coaching compilation — each is stated in the Ministry of Finance's own Economic Survey volumes of the period, which is the safest source for programmes of these years.
- (a)2, 3, 4, 1 — Wrong at both ends. It puts the Rural Employment Generation Programme (1995) ahead of the Prime Minister's Rozgar Yojana (1993), and it makes the Pradhan Mantri Gramodaya Yojana (2000-01) the last of the four when the Valmiki Ambedkar Awas Yojana (December 2001) came after it.
- (b)4, 2, 1, 3 — A complete inversion of the two anchors. It makes the Valmiki Ambedkar Awas Yojana — the youngest of the four, launched in December 2001 — the earliest, and pushes the Prime Minister's Rozgar Yojana of 1993, the oldest, to last place.
- (c)1, 2, 3, 4 — This is the 'no-shuffle' option that a guessing candidate reaches for, and it fails immediately: it would require the Pradhan Mantri Gramodaya Yojana (2000-01) to have preceded the Prime Minister's Rozgar Yojana (1993) by seven years. Only the last position, VAMBAY, is right.
The four names belong to two distinct families of programme, and knowing which family a scheme belongs to is the quickest way to date it. The first family is employment and self-employment generation: the Prime Minister's Rozgar Yojana (1993) financed self-employment ventures by educated unemployed youth, and the Rural Employment Generation Programme (1995) financed village-industry units through the Khadi and Village Industries Commission. These belong to the early-1990s concern with educated unemployment and were finally merged with each other in 2008 to form the Prime Minister's Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP). The second family is basic needs and shelter, and it clusters at the turn of the century: the Pradhan Mantri Gramodaya Yojana (2000-01) routed Additional Central Assistance to States for rural basic minimum services, and the Valmiki Ambedkar Awas Yojana (December 2001) built and upgraded dwellings for urban slum dwellers.
The list deliberately mixes rural with urban and self-employment with housing, so there is no single narrative thread to follow — you have to hold four dates. The efficient way in is to fix the two anchors rather than all four dates. The Prime Minister's Rozgar Yojana is the oldest of the four (1993) and the Valmiki Ambedkar Awas Yojana is the youngest (December 2001). Any option that does not begin with 3 and end with 4 can be struck out, and that alone eliminates (a), (b) and (c), leaving (d). The only genuinely close call is between the Gramodaya Yojana (2000-01) and VAMBAY (December 2001) — barely a year apart — and even that only matters if you have already lost the anchors.
- Prime Minister's Rozgar Yojana — started in 1993 (the launch is commonly dated 2 October 1993); a credit-linked self-employment scheme for educated unemployed youth, with bank loans and a margin-money subsidy.
- Rural Employment Generation Programme — launched in 1995 and implemented by the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC), providing margin-money assistance for setting up village industry units in rural areas.
- PMRY and REGP were merged in 2008 into a single scheme, the Prime Minister's Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP), still run through KVIC — which is why the two are always studied as a pair.
- Pradhan Mantri Gramodaya Yojana — launched in 2000-01 in all the States and Union Territories, as Additional Central Assistance earmarked for basic needs in rural areas; primary health, primary education, rural shelter, rural drinking water and nutrition are the components usually listed.
- Valmiki Ambedkar Awas Yojana — launched in December 2001 to ameliorate the conditions of urban slum dwellers through shelter and sanitation; it was later subsumed into the slum-housing programmes taken up under the JNNURM from 2005.
- All four launch years are well attested in the Economic Survey volumes of the period — rather than in secondary compilations.
- 1993 — Prime Minister's Rozgar Yojana (3): self-employment for educated unemployed youth
- 1995 — Rural Employment Generation Programme (2): village industries through KVIC
- 2000-01 — Pradhan Mantri Gramodaya Yojana (1): Additional Central Assistance for rural basic needs
- December 2001 — Valmiki Ambedkar Awas Yojana (4): shelter for urban slum dwellers
Order of launch 3 → 2 → 1 → 4 = option (d). PMRY and REGP were later merged into PMEGP in 2008.
- Assuming that a scheme carrying 'Pradhan Mantri' or 'Prime Minister' in its name must be recent. The Prime Minister's Rozgar Yojana of 1993 is the oldest of the four here.
- Confusing the Pradhan Mantri Gramodaya Yojana (2000-01, Additional Central Assistance for rural basic needs) with the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (December 2000, rural roads) — the abbreviations PMGY and PMGSY are almost identical.
- Reading VAMBAY as a rural scheme because of the word 'Awas'. Unlike the Indira Awaas Yojana it was an URBAN programme, for slum dwellers in towns and cities.
UPPSC sets scheme chronology or scheme-to-launch-year matching almost every year and expects the years to be recalled cold, with no dates printed in the question; UPSC has preferred to ask what a scheme actually contained or which earlier schemes were merged into a new one — as in its question on what the Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana of 1997 did and did not subsume.
The Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana which came into operation from 1 December 1997 aims to provide gainful employment to the urban unemployed or underemployed poor but does not include
- (a) Nehru Rozgar Yojana
- (b) Urban Basic Services Programme
- (c) Prime Minister's Integrated Urban Poverty Eradication Programme
- (d) Prime Minister's Rozgar Yojana
Answer(d) Prime Minister's Rozgar Yojana
The same scheme, tested from the other direction — UPSC's answer turns on the Prime Minister's Rozgar Yojana having been a separate, continuing programme in 1997, which is only possible because it was launched back in 1993, exactly the date this UPPSC chronology depends on.
Schemes of (i) Urban Micro Enterprises, (ii) Urban Wage Employment, and (iii) Housing and Shelter Upgradation are parts of
- (a) Integrated Rural Development Programme
- (b) Nehru Rozgar Yojana
- (c) Jawahar Rozgar Yojana
- (d) Prime Minister's Rozgar Yojana
Answer(b) Nehru Rozgar Yojana
The same family of 1990s employment and shelter programmes, and the same discrimination the UPPSC question requires — telling the Prime Minister's Rozgar Yojana apart from the other similarly named Rozgar Yojanas of the period.
Match List - I with List - II and select the correct answer from the codes given below the lists : List - I (Scheme) A. P. M. Jan Arogya Abhiyan B. P. M. Vaya Vandan Yojana C. P. M. Rojgar Protsahan Yojana D. Swachh Bharat Abhiyan List - II (Launching Year) 1. 2015 2. 2018 3. 2017 4. 2014 Codes : A B C D
- (a) 2 3 1 4
- (b) 1 2 3 4
- (c) 2 3 4 1
- (d) 2 4 3 1
Answer(a) 2 3 1 4
Exactly the same demand in matching form — UPPSC asks you to attach a launch year to a central scheme from memory, so the launch dates of flagship programmes are a standing item on this paper rather than an occasional one.
Which of the following (Scheme - Year) is not correctly matched?
- (a) Rural Housing Interest Subsidy Scheme - 2017
- (b) Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana - 2014
- (c) Shyama Prasad Mukherji Rurban Mission - 2015
- (d) Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gramin Kaushalya Yojana - 2014
Answer(c) Shyama Prasad Mukherji Rurban Mission - 2015
The negative version of the same skill, and on the same subject — rural development schemes and their launch years. UPPSC alternates between 'arrange in order' and 'which pair is not correctly matched', but the underlying preparation is identical.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Prime Minister's Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP), introduced in 2008, was formed by merging which two earlier schemes ?
- (a)Nehru Rozgar Yojana and Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rozgar Yojana
- (b)Prime Minister's Rozgar Yojana and Rural Employment Generation Programme
- (c)Jawahar Rozgar Yojana and the Employment Assurance Scheme
- (d)Integrated Rural Development Programme and Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana
Answer(b) the Prime Minister's Rozgar Yojana (1993) and the Rural Employment Generation Programme (1995) — PMEGP is administered by the Ministry of MSME and implemented nationally through the Khadi and Village Industries Commission.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Valmiki Ambedkar Awas Yojana, launched in December 2001, was intended primarily for :
- (a)landless agricultural labourers in rural areas
- (b)urban slum dwellers
- (c)scheduled tribe households living in and around forests
- (d)construction workers registered with State welfare boards
Answer(b) urban slum dwellers — VAMBAY provided shelter and sanitation for slum households in towns and cities, and was later absorbed into the slum-housing work taken up under the JNNURM. Rural housing of that period ran through the Indira Awaas Yojana instead.