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ENHI

RAS question

ASSERTION (A): Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) contribute significantly to India's GDP, employment, and exports — making them a backbone of India's manufacturing and services economy. REASON (R): The Make in India initiative launched in 2014 explicitly targets MSMEs as the primary beneficiaries by providing special tax exemptions and guaranteed government procurement exclusively for MSME products. Select the correct answer using the codes given below:

Correct answer: (C) A is true, but R is false.

MSMEs are a major part of India’s economy, but the Make in India initiative is not an MSME-exclusive programme with special tax exemptions and guaranteed procurement only for MSME products.

  1. (A)

    Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A

  2. (B)

    Both A and R are true, but R is NOT the correct explanation of A

  3. (C)

    A is true, but R is false

  4. (D)

    A is false, but R is true

Explanation

Assertion A is true because MSMEs contribute around 30% of India’s GDP, more than 40% of exports, and employ more than 11 crore people across manufacturing, services and trade. That is why they are fairly described as a backbone of the economy. Reason R is false as framed. The PIB note on Make in India says the campaign was launched on 25 September 2014 to provide domestic and overseas investors a conducive environment to manufacture in India and create job opportunities, and it lists 25 sectors under the campaign. This makes it a broad manufacturing initiative, not a programme designed exclusively for MSMEs. Procurement preference for MSMEs belongs to MSME law and public procurement policy, not to an MSME-only Make in India promise.

Why the other options are wrong

  • (A) Option A treats R as true and explanatory, but Make in India is a broad sectoral manufacturing campaign, not an MSME-exclusive package of tax exemptions and guaranteed procurement.
  • (B) Option B still assumes that R is true, whereas the claim of exclusive MSME targeting under Make in India is itself false.
  • (D) Option D reverses the facts: the MSME assertion is true, while the Make in India reason is false because the campaign covers many sectors and investors rather than only MSMEs.

Concept

This tests the RAS economy-geography overlap: how industrial policy, MSMEs, manufacturing, employment and exports fit into India’s spatial-economic development. It recurs because assertion-reason questions often mix a true sectoral fact with an exaggerated policy claim.

Source

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