MoSPI Releases Trial Index of Services Production for July 2026

The correct answer is 19. The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation released the sub-sectoral trial Index of Services Production for the month in respect of nineteen broad sub-sectors, computed on the base year 2024-25. Those sub-sectors run from wholesale and retail trade through the transport modes, warehousing, postal and courier services, telecommunications, information and broadcasting, banking, insurance, real estate, information technology, professional and scientific services, administrative and support services and arts, entertainment and recreation. Options A, B and D are wrong because the release names nineteen sub-sectors, and the annexure carries month-wise indices for each of those same nineteen from July 2025 onwards. The ministry also stressed that the series is experimental for the present, published so that data quality and resilience can be examined and feedback gathered from users before it becomes a regular monthly release.

The correct answer is administrative and support services, which posted the fastest growth of the nineteen sub-sectors against the same month a year earlier. Option A is wrong because retail trade, though it grew strongly, came second in the month's growth ranking. Option C is wrong because real estate came after retail trade. Option D is wrong because banking grew more slowly than all three, and its index is in any case based on provisional monthly data that will be revised once a year, as is the case for the railways and insurance sub-sectors. Two ideas should be kept apart here: the fastest growth belonged to administrative and support services, while the highest index level in the month belonged to accommodation and food services, since a high index means a high level of activity relative to the base year rather than a large rise over last year.

The correct answer is air transport, whose index stood at 87.8 after a fall of 8.4 per cent over July 2025, the only sub-sector in the release reading below hundred, which means activity was below its own base-year level. Option A is wrong because repair services also contracted, by 5.0 per cent, yet its index was 126.3 and so remained well above hundred: the index measures the level of activity against the base year while the growth rate compares it with a year earlier. Option B is wrong because water transport grew 7.7 per cent in the month. Option D is wrong because postal and courier services grew 8.7 per cent. Air transport and repair services were the only two of the nineteen sub-sectors to record a decline in July 2026, and that pairing is the point worth remembering.