DFS Orders Scheme-Wise Reporting of SC Beneficiaries by Banks

The correct answer is the Department of Financial Services. It is the department of the Finance Ministry that deals with banks, insurance and the financial inclusion schemes, and it is the body that issued the directions to convenors of State Level Bankers Committees and their Union Territory counterparts after the National Commission for Scheduled Castes raised the gap. Option B, the Department of Expenditure, handles public expenditure management, financial rules and pay matters, and has no role in directing bankers committees. Option C, the Department of Revenue, looks after direct and indirect taxes through the two Boards under it, again unrelated to this instruction. Option D, the Department of Economic Affairs, deals with macroeconomic policy, the Budget and external assistance. Only the Department of Financial Services has administrative charge of banks and the lending schemes named in the Commission letter.

The correct answer is Article 338(5)(c). The Commission told the Department of Financial Services that the absence of Scheduled Caste beneficiary figures in bankers committee reports was hindering the constitutional mandate this clause gives it, namely to evaluate the progress of socio-economic development of the Scheduled Castes. That is precisely why it asked for scheme-wise and bank-wise data. Option B deals with the reservation of seats for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in the House of the People, a matter of political representation rather than evaluation. Option C empowers the President to specify the castes that shall be deemed Scheduled Castes in relation to a State or Union Territory. Option D does the same for Scheduled Tribes. None of these three concerns the evaluative duty the Commission invoked here, so only the first option fits.

The correct answer is 9 October 2026. The directions ask convenors of State Level Bankers Committees and Union Territory Level Bankers Committees to share the Scheduled Caste beneficiary information with the Commission regularly and to send an action-taken report to the Department of Financial Services by that date, setting out how far the data is available and what difficulties arise in compiling it. An update on the action taken is separately due within thirty days. Option A is the date on which the Department of Financial Services itself issued the directions to the convenors, not the deadline for their reply. Option C is the date on which the Commission Secretary wrote to the Department of Financial Services, which is where the matter started. Option D does not figure in the directions at all.