Which body is the nodal agency for the Prime Minister's Employment Generation Programme?

The correct answer is D, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises. The expression comes from the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Act, which came into force on 2 October 2006 and gave the sector its first statutory definition, replacing the older language of small scale and ancillary industrial undertakings.

Option A is wrong because the first category is micro, not medium; the three categories in ascending order are micro, small and medium. Option B is wrong for the same reason in reverse: the third word is medium and not marginalized, and no Indian law uses the term marginalized enterprise. Option C is wrong because strategic is not a category of enterprise in the Act at all. Since this is the easiest question the sector can yield, read the options to the end: all four begin with words that look plausible, and only one gives the three categories in the correct order.

The correct answer is C, Micro Enterprise. Under the composite criteria notified in 2020, an enterprise with investment in plant, machinery or equipment up to one crore rupees and turnover up to five crore rupees is a micro enterprise, and the same ceilings apply whether it manufactures goods or renders services. An enterprise crossing either ceiling moves up a category.

Option A is wrong because tiny enterprise was a category of the older policy framework and is not used in the present classification. Option B is wrong because a small enterprise stood at investment up to ten crore rupees and turnover up to fifty crore under the same notification. Option D is wrong because a medium enterprise stood at fifty crore and two hundred and fifty crore rupees. The ceilings have since been revised upward, but an enterprise of this size remains in the micro category, so the answer does not change.

The correct answer is D, Sick Industrial Companies Act. This Act of 1985 had created the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction to deal with sick industrial units in the private sector. As part of the reforms, it was amended in December 1991 so that sick public sector enterprises could also be referred to the Board, which fitted the new policy of treating public undertakings by commercial standards.

Option A is wrong because the Industries Development and Regulation Act of 1951 dealt with licensing, not with sickness or revival. Option B is wrong because the Companies Act governs the formation and working of companies in general; winding up under it is a separate route. Option C is wrong because there is no Financial Rehabilitation Act in Indian law, and the name is invented to look plausible. The machinery of the 1985 Act was itself replaced later by the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code of 2016.

The correct answer is C, 1955. The National Small Industries Corporation was set up in 1955 to help small units with machinery on hire purchase, raw material supply, marketing and government purchase, and it works under the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.

Option A is wrong because 1954 is the year of the Karve Committee's work on village and small industries, and it is placed here to catch the candidate who remembers only that the corporation belongs to the mid nineteen fifties. Option B is wrong because 1982 is the year in which NABARD was set up for rural and agricultural credit. Option D is wrong because 1975 is the year of the nationalisation of coal companies and of the founding of Coal India, nothing to do with small industry. Keep the sector's dates in one line: NSIC in 1955, KVIC in 1957, NABARD in 1982 and SIDBI in 1990.

The correct answer is C, 2006. The MSMED Act came into force on 2 October 2006. It defined micro, small and medium enterprises in law for the first time, provided for a National Board for MSME, required a memorandum of registration and laid down the rule that a buyer must pay a micro or small enterprise within forty five days.

Option A is wrong because 2002 is the year of the Competition Act, which replaced the MRTP Act. Option B is wrong because no MSME law belongs to 2004; the year is offered only because it lies near the correct one. Option D is wrong because 2010 is a year of no statute in this field, though the National Manufacturing Policy followed in 2011. Note the date as well as the year, because 2 October, the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, was chosen deliberately for a law about village and small enterprise.