Banking GK Questions 2026

The correct answer is the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation under the Ministry of Jal Shakti. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting release states plainly that the campaign is being organised jointly by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and that department, which together cover urban and rural sanitation. Option A is wrong because rural development is a separate department and was not named as an organiser. Option C is wrong because the environment ministry has no stated role in running this campaign. Option D is wrong because health and family welfare is not among the organisers, even though health camps are held for Safai Mitras during the campaign. The urban plus rural pairing is the logic to remember, since a national cleanliness campaign must reach both kinds of settlement.

The correct answer is Swachhata Mein Sahbhag, Swachh Bharat, Viksit Bharat. Both the Department of Food and Public Distribution and the Ministry of Textiles named this as the theme of the current campaign, and described it as an appeal to treat cleanliness as a collective effort and a festival of community involvement. Option B is wrong because that phrase is not the theme announced for this edition. Option C is wrong because although it sounds close to the language used in such campaigns, it is not the theme named in these releases. Option D is wrong because it is a general slogan and not the theme declared for this year. Themes of national campaigns change every year, so aspirants should always link the theme to the year and to the campaign name together.

The correct answer is NSKFDC, the National Safai Karamcharis Finance and Development Corporation. The Secretary of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment said the scheme promotes sustainable livelihoods, capacity building, access to safety gear and mechanisation through interventions implemented by this corporation. The name itself carries the clue, because Safai Karamcharis are the very workers the scheme is built around. Option A is wrong because that corporation works for scheduled caste beneficiaries in general and is not named as the implementing body here. Option C is wrong because it serves backward classes and has no role stated in this release. Option D is wrong because it works for minority communities. Matching a scheme with its implementing corporation is a standard question pattern in general awareness papers.

The correct answer is Rs 34.16 crore. Under the capital subsidy intervention for mechanisation, routed through the Swachhta Udyami Yojana, the Ministry reported that 983 beneficiaries have been supported with this amount. The purpose of the subsidy is to help sanitation workers acquire machines so that hazardous manual work is replaced by mechanised cleaning, which is the central idea of the NAMASTE Scheme. The other three options are wrong simply because no such amount is reported for this intervention; they are plausible looking figures placed to test whether the aspirant recalls the exact number. A useful habit is to memorise the amount together with the beneficiary count, since examiners often pair the two in a single statement and change only one of them.

The correct answer is 90,186. The Ministry's Secretary stated that the sewer and septic tank workers component now covers all 36 States and Union Territories, and that this many workers have been validated. The validated workforce is made up of 86,468 men, 3,713 women and five transgender persons, and these sub-totals add up to the figure in the correct option, which is a quick way to verify the answer. Options A and C are wrong because they do not match any figure reported for this component. Option D is a deliberate trap, because that number belongs to the separate waste picker component, where the profiled count covers 34 States and Union Territories rather than 36. Keeping the two components apart is the key to answering this question correctly.

The correct answer is National Action for Mechanized Sanitation Ecosystem. The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment defines NAMASTE exactly this way, and describes its aim as ensuring the safety and dignity of sanitation workers by creating an enabling ecosystem that recognises their contribution to the operation and maintenance of sanitation infrastructure. Option B is wrong because the scheme is not framed as a mission for advanced sanitation technology, and the word mission does not appear in its name. Option C is wrong because it is not a municipal training agency and it is not confined to urban local bodies alone. Option D is wrong because NAMASTE is not an authority for sewerage treatment but a scheme centred on workers. Full forms of welfare schemes are frequently asked, so learn the expansion word for word.

The correct answer is 2015. At the seventh meeting the OPEC Secretary General said that the OPEC-India Energy Dialogue is eleven years strong, having been launched in New Delhi in 2015. That single sentence gives both the launch year and the launch city, so it is worth remembering as a pair. Option A is wrong because the dialogue did not exist that early. Option C is wrong because by that year the dialogue had already been running for some time. Option D is wrong for the same reason. A useful cross-check in the examination hall is the arithmetic: a dialogue described as eleven years strong in the current year must have begun in the year given in option B, so the wording of the statement itself confirms the answer.

The correct answer is Vienna. The release records that both sides agreed to hold the Eighth High-Level Meeting of the OPEC-India Energy Dialogue in Vienna, Austria, on a mutually convenient date. Vienna is also where the OPEC Secretariat is based, which makes the choice easy to recall. New Delhi is wrong because it hosted the seventh meeting and also the launch of the dialogue, not the next edition. Riyadh is wrong because although Saudi Arabia is a major OPEC member, the capital named for the next round is not Riyadh. Abu Dhabi is wrong for the same reason. Aspirants should keep two venues separate in memory here: New Delhi for the meeting just concluded, and Vienna for the one to come.

The correct answer is Hardeep Singh Puri. The meeting was co-chaired by Hardeep Singh Puri, India's Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, and by the OPEC Secretary General. Since the dialogue is about oil markets, energy security and investment in the oil industry, the Indian co-chair is the minister who holds the petroleum portfolio, and that is the link to remember. Piyush Goyal is wrong because the commerce and industry portfolio is not the one that leads this dialogue. Nirmala Sitharaman is wrong because the finance ministry did not lead this engagement, even though energy prices affect the economy. Pralhad Joshi is wrong as the release names only the petroleum minister as the Indian co-chair. Questions on ministerial dialogues usually turn on matching the subject of the dialogue with the correct portfolio.

The correct answer is Voice-and-SMS-only vouchers for validities of 30 days and less. Under the amendment, wherever an operator offers a voice-SMS-data special tariff voucher with a validity of 30 days or less, it must also offer a voice-and-SMS-only voucher of the same validity at an appropriately reduced price. Operators must also offer a pack that renews on the same date every month, falling back to the last day in shorter months, and at least one longer voice-and-SMS pack.

The other options invent products that the regulation does not cover. TRAI's concern, after the Twelfth Amendment of 2024, was that operators had listed only a handful of voice-SMS packs, concentrated on long validities, so low-income users who rely on a basic phone or a second SIM could not buy a cheap short pack. The new rule targets exactly that gap.

The correct answer is Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. TRAI, the sector's regulator, released the Thirteenth Amendment on 22 September 2026 after a draft issued on 7 April 2026 drew 1,132 responses and an open house discussion on 15 June 2026. The amendment obliges operators to offer voice-and-SMS-only special tariff vouchers for validities of 30 days and less, so that users who do not need data are not forced to buy bundled packs.

The Department of Telecommunications is the government department that makes policy and issues licences, not tariff regulations. The Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) hears appeals against TRAI's decisions rather than issuing regulations. The Ministry of Electronics and IT deals with electronics, IT and semiconductors. For telecom tariffs, quality of service and consumer protection, the regulator is always TRAI.

The correct answer is 4%. Vice-President C. P. Radhakrishnan noted that India accounts for about 2.4 per cent of the world's land area and 18 per cent of its population, while possessing only about 4 per cent of global freshwater resources. That mismatch is why he said India's water use cannot be compared with countries that have far more water and far fewer people, and why he asked citizens to adopt simple habits such as closing the tap while brushing.

The other numbers are lifted from the same sentence to confuse: 2.4% is India's share of the world's land, 18% is its share of population, and 10% is a distractor. These three figures appear in almost every Indian water-policy document, so learn them as a trio: 2.4% land, 18% people, 4% freshwater.

The correct answer is Sustainable Urban River Management (SURM) Framework. At the inauguration on 22 September 2026, the Vice-President launched the SURM Framework along with an AI/ML-driven Integrated Reservoir Sediment Management system, described as steps towards technology-enabled and climate-resilient water management. Urban river management matters because most Indian cities have turned their rivers into drains, and sediment management decides how long reservoirs keep their storage capacity.

The other options are made to sound official. There was no National Water Policy launched at the event; Atal Bhujal is an existing groundwater scheme, not a framework launched here; and Namami Gange is the Ganga programme, with no "3.0" announced. Read launch questions carefully: the name of the document and the launching dignitary are usually what is tested.

The correct answer is Climate Resilient Water Management. The 9th India International Water Week, organised by the Ministry of Jal Shakti at Bharat Mandapam, New Delhi, from 22 to 26 September 2026, is centred on this theme. Vice-President C. P. Radhakrishnan inaugurated it on 22 September and said climate change, rapid urbanisation and population growth are making water management more complex, calling for river-basin management, groundwater recharge, rainwater harvesting and efficient irrigation.

The distractors are plausible slogans. "Jal Sanchay Jan Bhagidari" is real but different: it is the Prime Minister's call for a mass movement on water conservation, which the Vice-President quoted in his speech. The other two are generic phrases in the style of international water-day themes. Themes change with every edition, so tie this one to the 9th edition and 2026.

The correct answer is C-DAC. The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing showcased its AUM HPC-AI processor and the RUDRA-AUM compute node, reflecting India's push to build indigenous capability in high-performance computing and AI at the system level, not just the chip level. C-DAC also displayed its indigenous 64-bit RISC-V processor, built on the open RISC-V architecture, which powers products such as Aheesa Technology's 1 Gbps connectivity device.

ISRO builds satellites and launch vehicles, DRDO develops defence systems and BEL is a defence electronics manufacturer; none of them made these processors. C-DAC, under the Ministry of Electronics and IT, is India's supercomputing agency, known for the PARAM series, which is why it leads the processor work. Other Indian names at the show included InCore Semiconductors for RISC-V processor IP and Netrasemi for AI surveillance chips.

The correct answer is ₹1,27,500 crore. Semicon 2.0 was approved by the Union Cabinet in July 2026 with this outlay. It builds on Semicon 1.0 and rests on six pillars: design; machines and materials; more fabs; advanced packaging; research and development; and talent development. The broader approach, covering the whole value chain rather than fabrication alone, was the point of the "Silicon to Systems" theme.

₹1.64 lakh crore is the trap: that is the investment commitment already made under the Semicon India Programme, across 12 approved projects in six States, three of which are in commercial production. ₹76,000 crore was the outlay of the original programme, and ₹1 lakh crore is a round-number distractor. Keep the two 2026 figures apart: ₹1,27,500 crore is the new government outlay, ₹1.64 lakh crore is investment committed by companies.

The correct answer is Yashobhoomi, New Delhi. The fifth edition of SEMICON India ran there for three days, from 17 to 19 September 2026, on the theme "Silicon to Systems: Building the Ecosystem", with more than 600 exhibiting companies, a Start-up Pavilion, a Workforce Development Pavilion, country and State pavilions and a hackathon.

Bharat Mandapam is the tempting wrong answer because it is Delhi's other big convention centre and hosted several 2026 events, including the India International Water Week that opened on 22 September. Mahatma Mandir in Gandhinagar hosts Vibrant Gujarat, and BIEC in Bengaluru hosts Aero India. Yashobhoomi, in Dwarka, is the India International Convention and Expo Centre in the capital's west. Keep the venue and theme together for this one.

The correct answer is All senior citizens aged 70 and above. On 11 September 2024 the Government extended AB PM-JAY to everyone aged 70 and above, regardless of income, covering about 6 crore senior citizens. They receive the Ayushman Vay Vandana card, and more than 1.36 crore such cards had been issued by 21 September 2026.

ASHA workers are the distractor: about 37 lakh families of ASHAs, anganwadi workers and helpers were indeed added, but earlier, in March 2024, and through a separate decision. Construction workers join through the Building and Other Construction Workers boards, and students are not a category at all. The name is easy to place: "Vay" refers to age, so the Vay Vandana card is the one for the elderly.

The correct answer is Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) 2011. Rural families qualify under six deprivation criteria of the SECC 2011, such as households with only one kucha room, no adult member between 16 and 59, female-headed households without an adult male, households with a disabled member, SC/ST households and landless households dependent on casual manual labour. Urban families qualify under 11 occupational categories, from rag pickers and domestic workers to construction workers and drivers.

Census 2011 is the tempting wrong answer: the SECC was a separate exercise from the population census. The National Family Health Survey is a health survey, not an eligibility list, and Aadhaar is an identity number, not a poverty database. Families once covered under the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana are included too.

The correct answer is ₹5 lakh. AB PM-JAY provides cashless hospitalisation cover of up to ₹5 lakh per family per year, covering 1,961 procedures across 27 medical specialties at public and private empanelled hospitals. The cover is per family, not per person, and there is no cap on family size or age.

The other amounts are distractors. The scale of use is worth remembering: by its eighth anniversary the scheme had funded about 13.25 crore hospital admissions worth ₹2.03 lakh crore, and over 48.51 crore people, about 33% of the population, held Ayushman cards. The Union Budget for 2026-27 provides ₹9,500 crore for it. A typical example in the backgrounder is a 65-year-old woman from Haryana whose hip surgery costing ₹44,140 was done free under the scheme.