Consider the following and arrange them in correct chronological order. 1. Food for work programme 2. Community Development Programme 3. Training for Rural Youth for Self Employment (TRYSEM) 4. Drought Prone Area Programme Select the correct answer from the code given below : Code :
- (a)4, 2, 3, 1
- (b)2, 4, 3, 1
- (c)2, 4, 1, 3
- (d)4, 2, 1, 3
Correct — C, 2, 4, 1, 3 — Community Development Programme, then Drought Prone Area Programme, then Food for Work Programme, then TRYSEM. Taking them by date: the Community Development Programme (item 2) was launched on 2 October 1952, Gandhi's birth anniversary, after the Community Projects Administration had been set up under the Planning Commission on 31 March that year — it is India's first nationwide rural development effort and by two decades the oldest thing on this list. The Drought Prone Area Programme (item 4) belongs to the Fourth Plan period and is conventionally dated 1973-74; it was an area-development scheme for chronically drought-prone districts. The Food for Work Programme (item 1) came in 1977, paying wages in foodgrains drawn from surplus stocks, and was restructured as the National Rural Employment Programme in 1980. TRYSEM (item 3) followed in 1979 as the training component of the Integrated Rural Development Programme, equipping rural youth aged 18 to 35 from below-poverty-line households for self-employment. Two anchors are enough to finish the question without recalling every year. First, the Community Development Programme is far and away the earliest, which eliminates options (a) and (d), both of which open with the Drought Prone Area Programme. Second, the Food for Work Programme (1977) comes before TRYSEM (1979), which eliminates option (b), the only surviving option that puts TRYSEM third. That leaves (c). The sequence also tells a coherent policy story: community development in the 1950s, area development in the early 1970s, wage employment in the late 1970s, and self-employment training at the end of that decade.
- (a)4, 2, 3, 1 — Wrong at both ends. It opens with the Drought Prone Area Programme, a Fourth-Plan-period scheme of the early 1970s, ahead of the Community Development Programme of 2 October 1952 — a gap of some twenty years. It then closes with the Food for Work Programme (1977) after TRYSEM (1979), reversing the true order of the last pair.
- (b)2, 4, 3, 1 — The most tempting of the wrong options, because it gets the first half exactly right — Community Development Programme (1952) then Drought Prone Area Programme (1973-74). It fails on the tail: it places TRYSEM before the Food for Work Programme, whereas the Food for Work Programme was launched in 1977 and TRYSEM in 1979.
- (d)4, 2, 1, 3 — This option does get the closing pair right — Food for Work Programme (1977) before TRYSEM (1979) — but it opens by putting the Drought Prone Area Programme ahead of the Community Development Programme. The Community Development Programme dates from 1952 and predates every other item on the list.
These four programmes are not variations on one idea; they are four successive generations of Indian rural policy, and dating them is easiest if you date the generation. The 1950s answer to rural poverty was community development — a single integrated effort covering agriculture, communications, health and education, delivered through the newly created development block. The early 1970s answer was area development: identify the regions whose handicap is ecological, such as chronically drought-prone or desert districts, and treat the area rather than the household. The late 1970s answer was direct wage employment, paying the rural poor to build assets, initially in foodgrains from India's growing buffer stocks. The last turn, at the close of that decade, was self-employment: train and equip a poor household to run a small enterprise of its own rather than wait for a wage. Every later Indian rural scheme is descended from one of these four lines.
Chronology questions are almost never solved by recalling four exact years; they are solved by finding the one or two comparisons the options actually depend on. Here the options differ only in two places — what comes first, and how the last pair is ordered — so those are the only two facts that must be secure. The Community Development Programme is the giveaway, because 1952 is one of the most firmly fixed dates in the whole rural-development syllabus, and it immediately halves the option set. The trap the paper is actually laying is in the tail: the Food for Work Programme and TRYSEM are only two years apart, both sit in the late 1970s, and candidates who remember TRYSEM as belonging with the 1980 Integrated Rural Development Programme tend to push it earlier than the Food for Work Programme. It is the other way round — 1977, then 1979.
- The Community Development Programme was launched on 2 October 1952; the Community Projects Administration had been created under the Planning Commission on 31 March 1952, and the National Extension Service extended the approach nationally from 1953
- Its perceived failure to secure real popular participation led to the Balwant Rai Mehta Committee (1957) and to Panchayati Raj, inaugurated in Rajasthan in 1959
- The Drought Prone Area Programme belongs to the Fourth Five Year Plan period and is generally dated 1973-74; it was later merged with the Desert Development Programme and the Integrated Wastelands Development Programme into the Integrated Watershed Management Programme (2009), now a component of the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana
- The Food for Work Programme (1977) paid wages in foodgrains from surplus stocks; it was restructured as the National Rural Employment Programme in 1980, merged with the Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Programme (1983) into the Jawahar Rozgar Yojana on 1 April 1989, and that wage-employment line runs on through the Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana (2001) to MGNREGA (2005). A separate scheme also called the Food for Work Programme was reintroduced in January 2001 for drought-hit areas — do not confuse the two
- TRYSEM (1979) was the training component of the Integrated Rural Development Programme, for rural youth aged 18 to 35 from below-poverty-line households; it was merged with IRDP and DWCRA into the Swarnajayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana in 1999, which became the National Rural Livelihood Mission in 2011
- 2 October 1952 — Community Development Programme launched [item 2]; the Community Projects Administration had been set up under the Planning Commission on 31 March 1952
- 1953-1959 — National Extension Service extends the approach nationally; the Balwant Rai Mehta Committee (1957) leads to Panchayati Raj (1959)
- 1973-74, Fourth Plan period — Drought Prone Area Programme, treating chronically drought-prone districts [item 4]
- 1977 — Food for Work Programme: wages paid in foodgrains from surplus stocks [item 1]; restructured as the National Rural Employment Programme in 1980
- 1979 — TRYSEM: training rural youth aged 18-35 for self-employment, as a component of the IRDP [item 3]; merged into SGSY in 1999
Answer (c): 2, 4, 1, 3 — community development, then area development, then wage employment, then self-employment training.
- Putting TRYSEM before the Food for Work Programme because TRYSEM is remembered alongside the 1980 IRDP. TRYSEM is 1979 and the Food for Work Programme is 1977
- Confusing the original 1977 Food for Work Programme with the scheme of the same name reintroduced in January 2001 for drought-affected areas — a decade-scale error if you date the item from the later one
- Dating the Community Development Programme from Panchayati Raj. Both were inaugurated on 2 October, but the Community Development Programme is 1952 and Panchayati Raj 1959
UPPSC sets chronology questions in almost every paper and likes them on rural development and rural credit specifically — the 2020 paper asked candidates to order Regional Rural Banks, NABARD, the SHG-Bank Linkage Programme and Kisan Credit Cards, and the 2021 paper ordered the four Panchayati Raj committees. UPSC rarely asks bare chronology; it prefers to test one scheme in depth — what JRY was formed from, what the components of a named yojana were — so the same knowledge is examined through identification rather than sequencing.
“...instil into the vast millions of workers, men and women, who actually do the job, a sense of partnership and of cooperative performance....” The above passage relates to
- (a) Planned Development
- (b) Community Development
- (c) Panchayati Raj System
- (d) Integrated Development Programme
Answer(b) Community Development
The first item of the UPPSC list, tested on its spirit rather than its date. UPSC expects candidates to recognise the language of the Community Development Programme — partnership and cooperative performance by the villagers themselves — which is precisely the ambition that the Balwant Rai Mehta Committee later judged unmet, and which fixes the programme at the very start of India's rural development story.
Which one of the following is true regarding the Jawahar Rozgar Yojana (JRY)?
- (a) It was launched during the Prime Ministership of Indira Gandhi
- (b) It aims at creating one million jobs annually
- (c) The target group of JRY are the urban poor living below the poverty line
- (d) Under the scheme 30% of the employment generated is reserved for women
Answer(d) Under the scheme 30% of the employment generated is reserved for women
Picks up the wage-employment line exactly where the UPPSC question leaves it. The Food for Work Programme of 1977 became the National Rural Employment Programme in 1980, and NREP was then merged with the Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Programme into the Jawahar Rozgar Yojana on 1 April 1989 — so knowing the JRY's parentage is knowing where item 1 of this chronology ends up.
Consider the following Committees on Panchayati Raj and arrange these in chronological order: I. Ashok Mehta Committee II. L.M. Singhvi Committee III. B.R. Mehta Committee IV. G.K.V. Rao Committee Select the correct answer from the codes given below.
- (a) I, II, III, IV
- (b) III, I, IV, II
- (c) II, I, III, IV
- (d) III, II, IV, I
Answer(b) III, I, IV, II
The same skill applied to the institutional sequel of the Community Development Programme. The B. R. Mehta Committee of 1957 was appointed precisely because the Community Development Programme was judged to have failed to secure popular participation, so this chronology begins where the UPPSC 2025 chronology begins — and it shows how routinely the commission tests rural development by ordering rather than by definition.
Consider the following events and arrange them in chronological order : 1. Establishment of NABARD 2. Self Help Group Bank Linkage Programme 3. Kisan Credit Card Plan 4. Establishment of Regional Rural Bank Select the correct answer from the codes given below. Codes :
- (a) 4, 1, 2, 3
- (b) 4, 2, 3, 1
- (c) 1, 2, 3, 4
- (d) 4, 3, 2, 1
Answer(a) 4, 1, 2, 3
The identical question format on the neighbouring subject of rural credit. Four milestones, four years, and the whole item decided by which one is earliest — the same technique of anchoring on the date you are most sure of and eliminating from there.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Community Development Programme was launched in India on which one of the following dates?
- (a)15 August 1947
- (b)26 January 1950
- (c)2 October 1952
- (d)2 October 1959
Answer(c) 2 October 1952 — launched on Gandhi's birth anniversary; 2 October 1959 is the date on which Panchayati Raj was inaugurated in Rajasthan, which is the classic confusion.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Jawahar Rozgar Yojana, launched in 1989, was formed by merging which two of the following programmes?
- (a)Integrated Rural Development Programme and TRYSEM
- (b)National Rural Employment Programme and Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Programme
- (c)Drought Prone Area Programme and Desert Development Programme
- (d)Employment Assurance Scheme and Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana
Answer(b) National Rural Employment Programme and Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Programme — NREP (1980, the restructured Food for Work Programme) and RLEGP (1983) were merged into the JRY on 1 April 1989.