Major Government Schemes of India: Years and Key Features

The correct answer is C, 2,500 rupees. Under the Regional Connectivity Scheme called UDAN, which stands for Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik and was launched in 2016, the fare on a subsidised seat is capped at about 2,500 rupees for an hour of flight on a fixed-wing aircraft, and the difference between that fare and the cost of operation is met by viability gap funding paid from a levy on other routes. The purpose is to put unserved and underserved airstrips in smaller towns back into use. Options A, B and D are wrong because each changes the capped figure; 1,500 and 2,000 are below the cap and 3,000 above it, and a question of this type is set precisely to see whether the figure has been learnt exactly. Remember the scheme as a triple: the year 2016, the expansion Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik, and the fare cap of 2,500 rupees an hour.

The correct answer is D, the Jawahar Rozgar Yojana. In 1989 the National Rural Employment Programme of 1980 and the Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Programme of 1983 were brought together into a single wage employment programme named the Jawahar Rozgar Yojana, which was run through the panchayats and remained the main rural employment programme of the early 1990s. Option A is wrong because the Indira Awas Yojana was a rural housing scheme, begun as a part of this very programme and later made independent; housing is not employment. Option B is wrong in a subtle way: the Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Programme was the other scheme that went into the merger, not the scheme that resulted from it, and the question asks what the National Rural Employment Programme was merged into. Option C is wrong because the Employment Assurance Scheme came later, in 1993, for the agricultural lean season in backward blocks.

The correct answer is A, 2020-21. The Swachh Bharat Mission was launched on 2 October 2014, and its rural wing completed the first phase of toilet building with the declaration of open defecation free villages in 2019. The second phase began in 2020-21 with the wider aim of open defecation free plus villages, which means sustaining the gains and adding the management of solid and liquid waste, greywater and plastic. Option B is wrong because 2019-20 is the year in which the first phase was wound up rather than the year the second began. Option C is wrong because 2018-19 falls in the middle of the first phase, when toilet coverage was being pushed to completion. Option D is wrong because 2021-22 is the second year of the new phase. Fix three dates for this mission: launch in 2014, open defecation free declaration in 2019 and Phase 2 from 2020-21.

The correct answer is C, 18 to 40 years. The Atal Pension Yojana, launched in 2015 and administered by the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority, is open to a bank account holder between 18 and 40 years of age, who contributes until the age of 60 and then draws a guaranteed monthly pension of between one thousand and five thousand rupees, the amount depending on the chosen pension level and the age of joining. The upper limit of 40 exists because the scheme requires a minimum of twenty years of contribution. Options A and B are wrong because they narrow the band at both ends and would shut out the youngest and the older entrants whom the scheme is meant to reach. Option D is wrong because 40 to 60 inverts the rule: 60 is the age at which the pension begins, not an age of entry, so nobody can join at 60.

The correct answer is C, Article 47. It places on the State the duty to raise the level of nutrition and the standard of living of its people and to improve public health, and a health assurance scheme such as Ayushman Bharat, which gives a cover of five lakh rupees a family a year for hospital treatment, is an attempt to carry out that direction. Option A is wrong because Article 48 deals with the organisation of agriculture and animal husbandry on modern and scientific lines and with the prohibition of the slaughter of cows and draught cattle. Option B is wrong because Article 46 requires the State to promote the educational and economic interests of the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes and other weaker sections. Option D is wrong because Article 45, as it now stands, concerns early childhood care and education for children below the age of six, the age group left outside Article 21A.

The correct answer is A, a small deposit scheme for the girl child. Sukanya Samriddhi was opened in 2015 as part of the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao campaign: a guardian may open an account in the name of a girl child below the age of ten at a post office or a bank, deposit a small sum every year, and draw the maturity amount for her education or marriage, with a rate of interest higher than ordinary savings and exemption from tax on the deposit, the interest and the maturity value. Option B is wrong because free bicycles for schoolgirls are given by State schemes such as those of Bihar and Jharkhand, not by this one. Option C is wrong because employability training for women is the work of skill development schemes such as the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana. Option D is wrong because self-defence training for girls is a component of schemes under the Ministry of Women and Child Development, not a savings scheme.

The correct answer is B, 100 days. The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act of 2005, renamed after Mahatma Gandhi in 2009, gives every rural household whose adult members are willing to do unskilled manual work a legal right to 100 days of such work in a financial year, with work to be provided within fifteen days of the demand and an unemployment allowance if it is not. Option A is wrong because 60 days has no place in the Act, although many earlier programmes offered only a few weeks of work in the lean season. Option C is wrong because 150 days is the figure to which the guarantee is raised in a district affected by drought or a natural calamity, which is an extension and not the general rule. Option D is wrong because no provision of the Act goes up to 180 days. The number to carry is 100, with 150 as the exception in a declared calamity.

The correct answer is B, 2014, and the exact date was 28 August 2014. The scheme offered every household a zero balance savings account with a RuPay debit card, built-in accident insurance, a small overdraft facility after satisfactory operation, and the plumbing for direct benefit transfer of subsidies and pensions. Option A is wrong because 2012 belongs to the earlier swabhimaan phase of financial inclusion, when banking correspondents were posted in villages but no national account-opening drive was mounted. Option C is wrong because 2016 is the year of the Ujjwala Yojana and the Fasal Bima Yojana and of demonetisation, none of which is the account scheme. Option D is wrong because 2018 is the year of Ayushman Bharat. The three years worth fixing are 2014 for Jan Dhan, 2015 for the insurance and pension schemes and 2018 for Ayushman Bharat.

The correct answer is B, 2 per cent. The scheme, launched in 2016, fixed a uniform maximum premium for the farmer and left the remaining actuarial premium to be shared by the Centre and the State: two per cent of the sum insured for kharif food crops and oilseeds, one and a half per cent for rabi crops and five per cent for annual commercial and horticultural crops. Option A is wrong because one and a half per cent is the rabi rate, and the kharif and rabi figures are the pair the question is testing. Option C is wrong because five per cent applies to commercial and horticultural crops such as cotton and fruit, which carry a higher risk. Option D is wrong because ten per cent is no part of the scheme; a premium of that order is what the old crop insurance schemes effectively charged and is exactly what this scheme was designed to bring down.

The correct answer is B, Ballia in Uttar Pradesh, from where the scheme was launched on 1 May 2016 to give deposit-free liquefied petroleum gas connections to adult women of poor households, so that cooking on firewood and dung cakes, with the smoke it puts into a kitchen, could be given up. Option A is wrong because Panipat in Haryana is the place from which Beti Bachao Beti Padhao was launched on 22 January 2015, a district chosen for its poor child sex ratio. Option C is wrong because Ranchi in Jharkhand is where Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana was launched on 23 September 2018. Option D is wrong because Patna has no such launch to its credit. Launch places are a standard question, so keep the three pairs together: Panipat, Ballia and Ranchi with their schemes and years.