UPSC Mains 2016 GS Paper 4 Q11: model answer
Suppose you are an officer in-charge of implementing a social service scheme to provide support to old and destitute women. An old and illiterate woman comes to you to avail the benefits of the scheme. However, she has no documents to show that she fulfils the eligibility criteria. But after meeting her and listening to her you feel that she certainly needs support. Your enquiries also show that she is really destitute and living in a pitiable condition. You are in a dilemma as to what to do. Putting her under the scheme without necessary documents would clearly be violation of rules. But denying her the support would be cruel and inhuman. (a) Can you think of a rational way to resolve this dilemma? (b) Give your reasons for it.
What the question wants
Suggest a rational way to resolve the dilemma of helping a genuinely destitute woman without documents, and give reasons.
How to structure it
Resolution, reasons.
- Rational way
- Reasons
How to think it through
Rules exist to identify the needy; here genuine need is established by inquiry. Rational: help her obtain documents (Aadhaar enrolment via introducer system, certificate from Gram Panchayat/Tehsildar, affidavit, self-declaration with verification), provisional enrolment if rules permit, interim help from other sources (Red Cross, district relief fund, NGO, Annapurna/NSAP), and suggest rule change for simplified verification. Don't break rules; don't be inhuman. Reasons: rule of law + compassion; purpose of scheme; precedent; accountability.
Model answer
Stakeholders
- The old woman; other applicants; the scheme's integrity; my department; me.
Dilemmas
- Rule of law vs compassion; procedure vs purpose.
Options
- Reject; enrol without documents; help her get documents and bridge the gap lawfully.
This is a false choice between breaking rules and being cruel. Documents are only a way of proving need. I already know her need; my job is to put that knowledge on paper lawfully.
(a) A rational way
- Record my inquiry: a written note of her age, living condition and destitution, signed by me and a local official.
- Help her get documents: a residence and age certificate from the Gram Panchayat or Tehsildar, a self-declaration verified by local enquiry, and Aadhaar enrolment through the introducer system meant for people without papers.
- Use any provision for provisional enrolment that the scheme allows, pending documents.
- Bridge the gap immediately: food grains under NFSA, help from the district Red Cross or relief fund, a local NGO or a temple or gurdwara kitchen, so that she does not wait hungry.
- Link her to other schemes like the old-age and widow pensions under the National Social Assistance Programme.
- Report the gap: suggest to the department that verified field inquiry be accepted where documents are missing, since many illiterate elderly women have none.
(b) Reasons
- Rule of law is kept: no false entry, no favouritism, nothing that I could not defend before audit.
- Compassion is served: she gets help within days, not after months.
- Purpose of the scheme: it exists for exactly such women; procedure should serve that purpose, not defeat it.
- Fairness to others: the same path is open to every applicant in her situation.
- Systemic learning: one case becomes a fix for many.
Gandhi's talisman asks us to recall the face of the poorest person we have seen. Here the face is in front of me; the rulebook only tells me how to help her properly.
Draw: A bridge from 'genuine need' to 'scheme benefit', with planks labelled 'inquiry note, certificates, Aadhaar, interim help'.
Keywords, cases and data to drop in
rule vs compassion, purpose of scheme, field verification, self-declaration, Gram Panchayat certificate, Aadhaar introducer, provisional enrolment, NFSA, NSAP pensions, Red Cross, policy feedback, Gandhi's talisman.
Where most answers lose marks
- Enrolling her anyway 'on compassionate grounds'; it breaks the rule and exposes her benefit to later cancellation.
Related Mains PYQs
- A business house is working on a project that could displace a forest community from their habitat. As the administrative officer of… UPSC 2026 · GS-IV
- Owing to paucity of time, a university professor generates a Ph.D. evaluation report using Artificial Intelligence and submits it with some modifications.… UPSC 2026 · GS-IV
- An endangered tribe has developed a severe skeletal deformity. A university research has identified a mineral supplement as a possible remedy, though… UPSC 2026 · GS-IV
- Discuss how national security can be balanced with concerns of human rights. UPSC 2026 · GS-IV
Fresh examples from current affairs
Supreme Court: no prior approval under Section 17A needed to probe a bribe demand
In a judgment of 16 October 2026, a Supreme Court Bench of Justices S.V.N. Bhatti and N.V. Anjaria held that investigating a bribe demand by a public servant does not need prior approval under Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act. Asking for a bribe, the court said, is not part of discharging official duties.
UPSC angle: Prelims: Sections 7, 7A, 17A and 19 of the PC Act. · Mains GS-II/GS-IV: honest officers versus accountability.
19 Oct 2026Learn the concept
Question text as printed in the official UPSC Civil Services (Main) question paper. The model answer is original Battle IAS work; use it to learn structure, not to memorise.
Want every PYQ in one place? See the Battle IAS PYQ Book.