Which three service areas does the approach paper propose to add to the Index of Services Production?

The correct answer is 2024-25. The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation began a monthly compilation of the Index of Services Production for the formal sector on a trial basis in July 2026, and that is the base year it adopted for the exercise. Options A and B name older base years of the kind used for other long-running statistical series, and they are wrong here because this index is new rather than a revision of an old one. Option C is wrong for the same reason, as no earlier base was carried forward into the services index. For the examination, pair the name of the index with its ministry, its base year and the fact that it is compiled monthly, since questions on new statistical products almost always turn on the base year.

The correct answer is 19. The initial framework of the index follows nineteen broad service sub-sectors, relying on high-frequency administrative data sources together with data on outward supplies filed under the goods and services tax, which between them account for close to sixty per cent of the gross value added of the services sector. The other three options are plausible-looking counts but none of them matches the framework described in the approach paper. Candidates should also note what the present index leaves out, namely the core tasks of government, non-market activity and services exempt from the goods and services tax, because the whole purpose of the new paper is to close exactly those gaps. It is also worth recalling that the monthly compilation for the formal sector began on a trial basis in July 2026, and that the base year was fixed at that point.

The correct answer is Rs 180.73. TRAI reports monthly ARPU for wireless service at that level in 2025-26, a rise of 3.59 per cent over the year. Option A is wrong because Rs 174.46 was the ARPU of the previous year, 2024-25, and the report gives it only for comparison. Option C is wrong because Rs 190.66 is the ARPU of prepaid service alone, while the figure for postpaid service was lower at Rs 119.76; the overall wireless ARPU blends both. Option D is wrong because Rs 245.66 is the average revenue from wireless data for every data subscriber in a month, a data specific measure and not the ARPU of wireless service as a whole. Two related data figures worth remembering are average use of 25.51 GB a month for every wireless data subscriber and average realisation of Rs 8.02 for every GB of data.

The correct answer is 93.26 per cent. TRAI's annual report records overall tele-density rising to that level at the end of March 2026 from 85.04 per cent a year earlier, which is why option A is wrong, as it is the figure for the end of March 2025 and not the one being asked. Option B is wrong because 89.88 per cent is the wireless tele-density covering mobile and fixed wireless access connections, a narrower measure that leaves out wireline connections. Option D is wrong because 151.47 per cent is the urban tele-density alone, a figure above hundred because many urban users hold more than one connection; the matching rural figure is 60.46 per cent. Tele-density means telephone connections for every hundred people, so the overall number sits between the urban and rural ones. Candidates should keep the four figures of overall, wireless, urban and rural tele-density clearly apart.

The correct answer is 1,330.58 million. The report puts total telephone subscribers, that is wireless and wireline taken together, at that number at the end of March 2026, a growth of 10.81 per cent over the year. Option A is wrong because that was the subscriber base a year earlier at the end of March 2025. Option B is wrong because it counts only wireless connections, covering mobile and fixed wireless access, which grew 10.19 per cent with a net addition of 118.58 million during the year. Option D is wrong because that is the number of internet subscribers, a different measure from telephone connections, and of that total 1065.88 million were broadband users. The report also splits the telephone base into 778.79 million urban and 551.79 million rural subscribers, with wireline subscribers at 48.25 million.