Indian Economy Questions and Answers

Answer: A

It was merged with the Department of Programme Implementation.

In October 1999 the Department of Statistics and the Department of Programme Implementation were merged to form the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), under which the National Sample Survey Office functions.

Departments of field inspection, information and infrastructure were not part of this merger.

MoSPI is now responsible for the national accounts, price indices, surveys such as the PLFS, and monitoring of government programmes.

Answer: A

The state is Odisha.

According to Energy Statistics India 2024, the states with the largest coal resources are Jharkhand, Odisha and Chhattisgarh, which together hold most of India's coal.

Madhya Pradesh has substantial reserves but ranks below these three, and Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu (whose main deposit is lignite) are far behind.

Coal is concentrated in the Gondwana basins of the Damodar, Mahanadi, Son and Godavari valleys, which explains why eastern and central states hold most of it.

Answer: C

The highest share belonged to the Western Region.

Energy Statistics India 2024 shows the installed electricity generating capacity of the Western Region (Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Goa and the Union Territories there) as the largest of the five regions as on 31 March 2023. It holds many large coal-fired plants as well as major solar and wind capacity in Gujarat and Maharashtra.

The Southern and Northern Regions follow, and the Eastern Region's share is much smaller.

Answer: B

The correctly matched pairs are A, B and C.

• A mason is usually employed and paid by the day, as a daily wage labourer.
• A domestic worker is a casual worker, without a regular contract or security of employment.
• A vegetable vendor runs his or her own small trade and is self-employed.

Pair D is wrong: a supervisor in a shop is an employee working for a salary, not a businessperson who owns the business. Every option that includes D is therefore incorrect.

Answer: C

The key gives They are not skilled.

Most agricultural labourers do unskilled manual work such as weeding, harvesting and carrying loads. Because the work needs no special training, a very large number of people compete for it, and any one labourer can easily be replaced by another. Without a skill that employers must pay for, labourers have little bargaining power, and their wages stay low.

The other options do not answer the question as the key reads it. Labourers are not satisfied with the prevailing wages; low wages are a hardship forced on them. Having no land of their own explains why they must work for others at all, and depending on landowners for work describes their situation, but the key takes the lack of skill as the reason the wage itself is low.

Answer: C

The reasons are B and D, so the answer is (B) and (D).

Casual workers are employed only when there is work and have no security of employment. Employers in small workshops and factories prefer them because they can be fired without prior notice (B) when work is short, and because they can be paid the lowest possible wages (D), often with no holidays, leave or other benefits.

Statement A is wrong: casual workers usually get no benefits from the employer, and the state has not taken care of them either. Statement C is not the reason; employers hire casual workers for the cost and flexibility, not because of their literacy. Options including A or C are therefore wrong.

Answer: B

Small producers have the best chance of a fair price under the cooperative system.

In a cooperative, producers pool their resources, buy inputs together and sell their output together, so the earnings are shared among the members instead of going to a middleman. Weavers' cooperatives and dairy cooperatives such as those in Gujarat are standard examples.

The other systems keep the small producer dependent. In the putting-out system a merchant supplies raw material and pays the weaver a low price for the finished cloth. Subcontracting and outsourcing pass work down a chain to the cheapest producer, so the worker at the bottom earns the least.

Answer: D

Statements B and C are true, so the answer is B and C.

Statement A is false. Street vendors' right to earn a livelihood is recognised: they were long treated as encroachers and removed, but the government's policy now recognises them, calls for hawking zones and gives them space to trade. With A false, every option containing A falls away, which leaves only 'B and C'.

C is true: casual workers in cities, such as construction or loading workers, get work only for a few days at a time, so they often take more than one job to make a living. B reflects how weekly closure of markets is regulated by the local urban authority in the textbook account.

Answer: A

The central banking functions of the Reserve Bank are described in Chapter III of the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934, which begins with the Bank's sole right to issue bank notes and covers its role as banker to the Government and to banks and its management of reserves.

Chapter II deals with the incorporation, capital, management and business of the Bank, so it describes the Bank as a corporate body rather than its central banking functions. The later chapters, including the ones named in the other options, deal with general, penal and other provisions of the Act.

Answer: A

The definitions, including the definition of insurance business and related terms, are collected in Section 2 of the Life Insurance Corporation Act, 1956, the interpretation section at the start of the Act.

Section 8, Section 56 and Section 110 of the Act deal with other matters, not definitions; an Act's definitions are ordinarily placed in an early section, and for this Act that is Section 2.