The Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) in Indian agriculture applies to which crop?

The correct answer is B, 22. The Government of India announces a Minimum Support Price for twenty-two mandated crops on the recommendation of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices. These cover cereals, pulses, oilseeds and commercial crops such as copra, raw cotton and raw jute. Sugarcane is kept outside this list and is dealt with separately through a Fair and Remunerative Price.

Option A is wrong because twenty is short of the mandated list and matches no official grouping. Option C is wrong because twenty-four is often chosen by candidates who count sugarcane and one or two minor crops along with the mandated list. Option D is wrong because eighteen is far too small; the pulses and oilseeds alone account for more than ten of the twenty-two. The figure to remember is twenty-two mandated crops plus a separate FRP for sugarcane.

The correct answer is D, Targeted Public Distribution System. The public distribution system was made targeted in 1997, when households were divided into those above and those below the poverty line and the subsidy was concentrated on the poorer group. Grain from the central pool, procured largely by the Food Corporation of India, is issued to the States and sold through fair price shops under this system.

Option A is wrong because it is a made-up phrase about population spread and has no place in food policy. Option B is wrong for the same reason; it describes nothing in the administration of food subsidy. Option C is wrong because although it borrows the word target, there is no scheme by that name; the development programmes of that period were the Integrated Rural Development Programme and its successors. Only option D is the correct expansion.

The correct answer is A, 65 per cent. When the Government announced the rabi Minimum Support Prices for the marketing season 2021-22, it also published the margin of each price over the A2 plus FL cost of production. For barley that margin worked out to about sixty-five per cent, which is comfortably above the declared floor of fifty per cent, that is one and a half times the cost.

Option B is wrong because ninety-three per cent was the margin for wheat in the same announcement, and the two are frequently interchanged. Option C is wrong because fifty per cent is the minimum the policy promises, not the figure estimated for barley. Option D is wrong because a margin above one hundred per cent applied to no rabi crop in that season. The point to carry away is that the margin is measured over the A2 plus FL cost.

The correct answer is B, the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices. Set up in January 1965 as the Agricultural Prices Commission and renamed in 1985, it works under the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare. It studies the cost of production, demand and supply, price trends and the terms of trade, and recommends a price for each mandated crop, which the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs then approves.

Option A is wrong because the Food Corporation of India buys at the announced price but plays no part in fixing it. Option C is wrong because NITI Aayog is a policy think tank without any statutory role in price fixation. Option D is wrong because the Reserve Bank of India is the monetary authority and deals with interest rates and currency, not with crop prices. The Commission recommends and the Cabinet decides.

The correct answer is C, C2. The C2 cost is the most comprehensive of the measures the Commission uses. It begins with all paid-out costs, adds the imputed value of unpaid family labour, and then adds two items the farmer never actually pays out: the rent the owned land could have fetched and the interest the money locked in owned fixed capital could have earned.

Option A is wrong because A2 covers only the costs actually paid in cash or kind, such as seed, fertiliser, hired labour, fuel and irrigation charges. Option B is wrong because A2 plus FL stops at adding family labour and does not touch owned land or capital; it is nevertheless the basis of the one and a half times formula. Option D is wrong because B1 is an intermediate cost in the series and is not the comprehensive measure the question describes.