Indian Organisations and Headquarters: City-wise List

The correct answer is D, Mumbai. Axis Bank, which began in 1994 as UTI Bank and was renamed in 2007, has its corporate office in Mumbai, the city that also holds the Reserve Bank of India, SEBI, the State Bank of India, the Central Bank of India, Union Bank of India, Bank of India and both stock exchanges. Mumbai is the financial capital of the country, so most private banks and insurers are based there.

Option A, Ahmedabad, is where Axis Bank was registered and has a large office, which makes it the trap in this question, and it is also the home of the Space Applications Centre and the Physical Research Laboratory. Option B, Bengaluru, is the headquarters of Canara Bank and of ISRO. Option C, Chennai, is the headquarters of Indian Bank and Indian Overseas Bank. None of these is the headquarters of Axis Bank.

The correct answer is B, Hyderabad. IRDAI was constituted under the IRDA Act of 1999 to regulate insurers, to register them and to protect policyholders. Its office was shifted from New Delhi to Hyderabad, and it is the one major financial regulator of India that works from neither Mumbai nor the capital, which is why the question is repeated so often.

Option A, Mumbai, holds the Reserve Bank of India, SEBI, the Life Insurance Corporation and the reinsurer GIC Re, so a candidate who reasons that insurance means Mumbai marks it wrongly. Option C, New Delhi, holds the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority and the National Housing Bank. Option D, Pune, is the headquarters of Bank of Maharashtra and of the National Insurance Academy, not of the regulator itself.

The correct answer is A, Lucknow. SIDBI was set up by an Act of Parliament in 1990 as the principal financial institution for the promotion, financing and development of micro, small and medium enterprises, and its head office is at Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh. It refinances banks that lend to small units and runs the funds that support start-ups and microfinance institutions.

Option B, Mumbai, is the headquarters of NABARD and of the Export-Import Bank of India, the two institutions a candidate tends to group with SIDBI. Option C, Kanpur, is an industrial city of the same state and is the home of the Indian Institute of Technology and the National Sugar Institute, not of SIDBI. Option D, New Delhi, holds the National Housing Bank. The pair to remember is SIDBI with Lucknow.

The correct answer is B, Kolkata. The Geological Survey of India was founded in 1851, mainly to look for coal for the railways, and it remained in Kolkata, which was then the capital. It maps the rocks and minerals of the country, and the Botanical Survey of 1890 and the Zoological Survey of 1916 also have their headquarters in the same city.

Option A, Dehradun, is the headquarters of the Survey of India, which maps the land surface, and of the Forest Research Institute, so the two surveys are easily confused. Option C, Nagpur, holds the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute and the central office of the Indian Bureau of Mines. Option D, Hyderabad, holds the National Geophysical Research Institute and the Atomic Minerals Directorate, both of which also work on the earth sciences.

The correct answer is C, Survey of India. It was founded in 1767, soon after the battle of Plassey, to map the territory the East India Company had acquired, and it is therefore counted as the oldest scientific department of the country. James Rennell was its first Surveyor General, and the Great Trigonometrical Survey that measured the subcontinent and the Himalayan peaks was carried out under it. Its headquarters is at Dehradun.

Option A, the Geological Survey of India, came much later, in 1851, and works from Kolkata. Option B, the India Meteorological Department, was founded in 1875 and has its headquarters at New Delhi. Option D, the Archaeological Survey of India, was founded in 1861 with Alexander Cunningham as its first head and works from New Delhi. Only the Survey of India goes back to the eighteenth century.

The correct answer is B, Karnal. The National Dairy Research Institute, an institution of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, works from Karnal in Haryana and does research on milk production, dairy technology and cattle breeding. The Central Soil Salinity Research Institute is in the same town.

Option A, Anand in Gujarat, is the home of Amul and of the National Dairy Development Board, so a candidate who thinks of dairy cooperatives marks it wrongly; the Board and the Institute are separate bodies. Option C, Izatnagar near Bareilly, is the seat of the Indian Veterinary Research Institute, which works on animal disease. Option D, Hisar in Haryana, has the Central Institute for Research on Buffaloes and an agricultural university, but not the NDRI.

The institute began at Bengaluru in 1923 as the Imperial Institute of Animal Husbandry and Dairying and was moved to Karnal in 1955, so an older question may name Bengaluru as its first home.

The correct answer is A, Mysuru. The Central Food Technological Research Institute, a laboratory of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, works at Mysuru in Karnataka on food processing, preservation, packaging and nutrition, and many processes used by the Indian food industry were developed there. The defence food laboratory DFRL is in the same city.

Option B, Pune, holds the National Chemical Laboratory of the CSIR and the National Institute of Virology. Option C, Lucknow, holds the Central Drug Research Institute and the Indian Institute of Toxicology Research. Option D, Nagpur, holds the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute. All four are real CSIR or research cities, which is what makes the distractors work in this question.

CFTRI was set up in 1950 in the Cheluvamba Mansion given by the Mysore royal family, which makes it one of the earliest laboratories of the CSIR chain.

The correct answer is C, Bengaluru. ISRO was formed in 1969 and its headquarters, along with the office of the Department of Space, is at Bengaluru, which also holds the U R Rao Satellite Centre where satellites are assembled and the ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network.

Option A, Thiruvananthapuram, is the seat of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, where launch vehicles are designed, and of the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre and IIST. Option B, Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, is the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, the launch site, and is often marked by candidates who confuse the launch pad with the head office. Option D, Ahmedabad, holds the Space Applications Centre and the Physical Research Laboratory, where payloads and space science are worked on.

ISRO grew out of INCOSPAR, the committee Vikram Sarabhai set up in 1962, and it works under the Department of Space, which reports directly to the Prime Minister.

The correct answer is B, Hyderabad. Bharat Dynamics Limited was set up in 1970 at Hyderabad to produce guided missiles for the armed forces, and it works closely with the DRDO missile laboratories DRDL and the Research Centre Imarat, which are in the same city. Mishra Dhatu Nigam, which makes the special alloys these systems need, is also at Hyderabad.

Option A, Bengaluru, is the headquarters of Hindustan Aeronautics, Bharat Electronics and BEML, so it is the natural trap for any defence production question. Option C, Pune, holds the Defence Institute of Advanced Technology and the Armament Research and Development Establishment. Option D, Nashik, has a major Hindustan Aeronautics aircraft division but is not a company headquarters.

Its units are at Kanchanbagh in Hyderabad, at Bhanur in Telangana and at Visakhapatnam, and it has produced the Akash surface-to-air system and anti-tank missiles for the Army.

The correct answer is B, Gorakhpur. The North Eastern Railway works from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh, and its station there is known for one of the longest railway platforms in the world. The zone covers eastern Uttar Pradesh and northern Bihar and has the Izatnagar, Lucknow and Varanasi divisions.

Option A, Guwahati, is where the Northeast Frontier Railway sits, at Maligaon, and that zone serves the North Eastern states, so the two names are the whole trap in this question. Option C, Hajipur in Bihar, is the headquarters of the East Central Railway, created in 2002. Option D, Kolkata, holds two zones, the Eastern Railway and the South Eastern Railway at Garden Reach, along with the Metro Railway.

The zones are worked under the Railway Board at New Delhi, and the Research Designs and Standards Organisation that tests railway designs is at Lucknow in the same state.

The correct answer is B, Shillong. The Assam Rifles traces its origin to the Cachar Levy raised in 1835, which makes it the oldest of the central armed police forces, and its Directorate General works from Shillong in Meghalaya. It guards the border with Myanmar and assists the states of the North East in internal security, and is administered by the Ministry of Home Affairs while being officered from the Army.

Option A, Guwahati, is the largest city of the region and holds the Northeast Frontier Railway headquarters, not the force. Option C, Itanagar, is the capital of Arunachal Pradesh. Option D, Kohima, is the capital of Nagaland, where the force has units but no headquarters. The National Security Guard, by contrast, is at Manesar in Gurugram.

The correct answer is A, Goa. The National Institute of Oceanography, a laboratory of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, works from Dona Paula near Panaji in Goa and studies the physics, chemistry, biology and geology of the Indian Ocean. Goa also holds the National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research, which runs the Indian stations in Antarctica and the Arctic.

Option B, Kerala, has the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute at Kochi. Option C, Tamil Nadu, has the National Institute of Ocean Technology at Chennai, which builds the instruments and the deep ocean systems, and is the closest trap here. Option D, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, has research stations and a zonal office but not the headquarters of the institute.

The institute was founded on 1 January 1966 out of the Indian part of the International Indian Ocean Expedition, and it runs research ships for survey work at sea.