A loan account of a bank is classified as a non-performing asset when interest or principal remains overdue for more than

The correct answer is B, Kisan Credit Card. The Kisan Credit Card scheme was introduced in 1998 on the recommendation of the R V Gupta Committee and is worked by commercial banks, regional rural banks and cooperative banks. It gives a farmer a single revolving limit for seeds, fertiliser, labour and other crop expenses, valid for several years with a yearly review, so that he need not apply afresh every season. The limit has since been extended to animal husbandry and fisheries, and short-term crop loans under it carry an interest subvention with a further rebate for prompt repayment.

Option A, Krishi Credit Card, uses the Hindi word for agriculture and is the closest trap, but the scheme is named after the farmer, the kisan. Options C and D both end in Corporation, which would make the name that of an institution rather than of a credit instrument, so neither can be right.

The correct answer is C, the SAPAP model. The South Asia Poverty Alleviation Programme model is called the international model of self help group formation because it was taken up with the support of the United Nations Development Programme and followed the same design across South Asian countries, beginning in India in the districts of Andhra Pradesh. It builds a three-tier structure, the group of poor women at the bottom, a village organisation above it and a federation at the mandal level, with savings first and credit afterwards.

Option A, the CDF model, refers to the Cooperative Development Foundation work in Andhra Pradesh, which is a cooperative thrift model. Option B, the SEWA model, grew out of the Self Employed Women's Association of Ahmedabad and its own bank. Option D, DWCRA, the Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas, was a government programme of 1982 and is the domestic, not the international, model.

The correct answer is B, 1 April 2016. The Reserve Bank introduced the MCLR from that date so that the price of a loan would follow the marginal, that is the latest, cost of raising funds rather than the average cost of old deposits. The MCLR is built from the marginal cost of deposits and borrowings, the negative carry on the balance kept for the cash reserve ratio, operating cost and a tenor premium, and every bank publishes it for tenors from overnight up to one year.

Option A, 1 July 2010, is the date the base rate came into force. Option C, 1 October 2019, is the date from which new floating rate retail and small business loans had to be linked to an external benchmark such as the repo rate. Option D, 2003, is close to the year the Benchmark Prime Lending Rate system was brought in. The three dates in order are 2010, 2016 and 2019.

The correct answer is B, the Benchmark Prime Lending Rate. Under the BPLR system a bank announced a prime rate for its best customers and then lent to many borrowers below it, so the announced rate told a customer very little and the lending book was not transparent. The base rate, in force from 1 July 2010, was defined as the floor below which no bank could lend, apart from a short list of exceptions such as loans against a bank's own deposits and loans to its own staff.

Option A, the MCLR, came four years after the base rate, not before it. Option C, the external benchmark lending rate, came in 2019 and is the latest of the three regimes. Option D, the bank rate, is a Reserve Bank policy rate aligned with the marginal standing facility and is not a bank's own lending benchmark at all.

The correct answer is B, hypothecation. In hypothecation a charge is created on movable property, such as a financed vehicle or the stock in a trader's shop, while the borrower keeps and uses the goods. Because the lender does not hold them, it must first take possession of the asset before it can sell it, which is why a defaulting borrower's car has to be seized, and the SARFAESI Act of 2002 gives a secured creditor that power.

Option A, pledge, is the charge under which the goods are delivered to the lender, as with gold kept in a bank's strong room, and it is governed by the Indian Contract Act of 1872. Option C, lien, is the right of the lender to retain goods or securities already in its hands until its dues are paid. Option D, mortgage, is a charge on immovable property and so does not belong to this group at all.