Government Schemes: Skill India Programme

Mission Shakti is an integrated women empowerment programme for the Fifteenth Finance Commission period, 2021-22 to 2025-26. It brings earlier schemes under two verticals. Sambal deals with the safety and security of women and includes One Stop Centres, the Women Helpline (181), Beti Bachao Beti Padhao and Nari Adalat, so statement 2 is wrong: BBBP sits under Sambal, not Samarthya. Samarthya deals with empowerment and includes Shakti Sadan (relief and rehabilitation homes), Sakhi Niwas (working women hostels), the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana, Palna (crèches) and SANKALP: Hub for Empowerment of Women. Statements 1 and 3 are therefore correct. PMMVY provides Rs 5,000 for the first child and Rs 6,000 for a second child if it is a girl, the latter meant to encourage a positive attitude towards the girl child. Grouping BBBP with safety reflects its origin as a response to the declining child sex ratio, while PMMVY and crèches are placed with economic empowerment because they help women continue in work and maintain their health and income around childbirth.

Startup India was launched on 16 January 2016 with a 19-point Action Plan. On 15 January 2022, while interacting with start-ups during the Startup India Innovation Week, the Prime Minister announced that 16 January would be celebrated every year as National Start-up Day,. The other dates are associated with other national observances: 15 August is Independence Day, 2 October is Gandhi Jayanti, and 26 November is Constitution Day. When a question links a 'day' to a scheme, the usual rule is that the day marks the scheme's launch anniversary, as here. Remembering the launch date also helps with chronology questions on the definition notifications that followed in February 2016.

The chapter tested whether, as in advanced economies, inequality in India harms health, education, crime and other socio-economic indicators while growth helps them. Using State-level data, it found that both higher per capita income and higher inequality were associated with better outcomes on many indicators, so in India growth and inequality converge in their relationship with these outcomes rather than conflict. Statement 1 is correct. The Survey then argued that economic growth has a far greater impact on poverty alleviation than inequality does, which is the opposite of statement 2. Its policy message was that, given India's stage of development, the focus should remain on growing the economy to lift the poor out of poverty, because redistribution is feasible in a developing economy only if the economic pie grows; statement 3 restates this. The Survey did not say inequality is irrelevant: it framed the choice as one of priority and sequencing, with growth expanding the resources available for welfare.

Chapter 7 of the Economic Survey 2017-18, released with a pink cover to mark its focus on gender, assessed India on 17 indicators of women's agency, attitudes and outcomes. It found improvement over time on 14 of them, so statement 1 is correct. It then introduced the idea of son meta-preference: even where sex-selective abortion is not practised, parents follow fertility-stopping rules, continuing to have children until they get the desired number of sons. The sex ratio of the last child is therefore heavily skewed towards boys, and the Survey estimated about 21 million 'unwanted' girls, in addition to about 63 million 'missing' women. Statement 2 is correct. Statement 3 contradicts the chapter's answer to its own question. The Survey found that son preference persisted even as incomes rose, and that richer States did not automatically do better; it observed that the North-Eastern States offered a model, and called for a societal choice on gender, so development alone was not a sufficient antidote.

SISFS was notified by DPIIT as S.O. 414(E) on 21 January 2021, with ₹945 crore to be disbursed from 1 April 2021 through selected incubators. It targets the seed gap, the stage after an idea and before VC money. Hence its age test is much stricter than the DPIIT definition: the start-up must be DPIIT-recognised and incorporated not more than two years before applying, so statement 2's ten-year window is wrong. The support has two windows: up to ₹20 lakh as a grant for proof of concept, prototypes or product trials, released against milestones, and up to ₹50 lakh for market entry, commercialisation or scaling through convertible debentures or debt-linked instruments. Other conditions include a technology-led business model, no more than ₹10 lakh of support from other government schemes, and Indian promoters holding at least 51 per cent.

SISFS uses incubators as intermediaries. An Experts Advisory Committee constituted by DPIIT selects incubators and sanctions each one a grant of up to ₹5 crore, released in instalments; the incubator then evaluates start-ups through its own seed management committee and disburses the grant or debt to them. This design draws on the incubator's mentoring and due-diligence capacity, so Statement-I is correct. Statement-II is also a real eligibility rule: the incubator must be a legal entity, operational for at least two years, with seating for at least 25 individuals and at least five start-ups physically incubated. But Statement-II is a quality filter for incubators; it does not explain why the scheme routes money through incubators at all. The reason lies in leveraging incubators' screening and mentoring. Both are true, and II does not explain I.

The 2022 directions list harsh practices: threatening or abusive language, persistent calls or calls before 9:00 a.m. and after 6:00 p.m., harassing relatives or co- workers, publishing borrowers' names, violence or threats, and misleading the borrower about the debt. Recovery is normally made at a designated central place; field staff may recover at the borrower's home or work only if the borrower fails to appear there on two or more successive occasions. A loan card in the borrower's language is mandatory.

Statements 1 and 2 are correct. The RBI's Responsible Business Conduct Amendment Directions, 2025 (4 December 2025; effective 1 April 2026 or earlier adoption) added a free cheque book of at least 25 leaves a year, free internet and mobile banking and a free passbook or statement, all on request; and it excluded digital payment transactions (POS, NEFT, RTGS, UPI, IMPS) from the count of four free withdrawals. Statement 3 is wrong: a BSBD holder is not eligible to open another BSBD account in the same bank or any other bank, and the bank must take a declaration to that effect.