IRMA PGDM (Rural Management) selection · India · Institute of Rural Management Anand
Original practice questions written to the published syllabus · not past papersIRMA PGDM (Rural Management) selection is a postgraduate admission exam run by Institute of Rural Management Anand, for candidates in India. Shortlisting on CAT, XAT or CMAT scores, then a Written Ability Test (200-300 words) and personal interview.
Official site: irma.ac.in.
We have not been able to confirm these details against the exam body's own specification, so fees, dates and pass marks are left out on purpose. Check the current format, eligibility, fees and dates on the official site.
How rural society is structured and governed: groups, stratification, leadership, customs and local self-government.
Our 21 IRMA PGDM selection questions in this subject: 0 easy, 11 medium, 10 hard, across 10 units.
Choose an answer, then open the working. Each explanation says why the right answer is right and why the others are not.
These 10 were written to IRMA PGDM selection and are not shown on any other exam's page.
In a village, a Brahmin family owns no land and lives on a priest's fees, while a newly rich trader of a lower caste owns the largest shop and two tractors but is excluded from temple rituals. Which framework explains this mismatch most directly?
A. Weber's separation of class (market position) from status (social honour)
The Brahmin family has status without class, and the trader has class without status: exactly the distinction Weber drew. A two-class Marxist model would rank them only by ownership and miss the status dimension.
A federation brings together SHGs from Dalit, Adivasi and OBC hamlets so they can negotiate with traders as one body. The ties it creates are best described as:
B. Bridging social capital
Bridging social capital connects people across different groups. Bonding ties link people who are alike (one hamlet's SHG); linking ties connect people to those with formal power, such as bank managers. Human capital is skills and health.
A watershed committee's grazing rules are ignored. Members say rules were written by the project engineer, nobody watches the closed area, and the one violator caught was fined a full year's fodder value. Which two Ostrom principles are most clearly violated?
A. Collective-choice arrangements and graduated sanctions
Rules made by an outsider violate collective choice (users should help make and change rules); a crushing first fine violates graduated sanctions. The case also shows weak monitoring. Nothing in it concerns nesting or government recognition.
An SHG of 15 members saves 100 currency units each per month. After 12 months a bank offers a loan of four times the group's accumulated savings. How large is the loan, ignoring interest earned on savings?
A. 72,000 currency units
Savings = 15 x 100 x 12 = 18,000 currency units; loan = 4 x 18,000 = 72,000 currency units. 18,000 currency units is the savings alone; 6,000 currency units is four times one month's savings of 1,500; 60,000 currency units multiplies a single member's annual savings (1,200) by 50. Linkage ratios vary by bank and programme.
A rural labourer earns 280 currency units a day in the village. In the city the wage is 500 currency units a day, but the chance of finding work on a given day is 60%. Under the Harris-Todaro reasoning, what is the expected urban wage, and is migration predicted?
B. 300 currency units; yes, because expected urban income exceeds the rural wage
Expected urban wage = 500 x 0.6 = 300 currency units, which exceeds 280, so migration is predicted. Using 500 currency units ignores unemployment; 200 currency units is 500 x 0.4, the chance of not finding work; 220 currency units is the raw gap, which ignores the probability.
A microfinance branch in rural Bihar finds that loan demand and repayment stress both peak in the same months each year. Which customary factor is most likely to explain the timing of demand?
D. Concentration of weddings and festivals in particular seasons, which drives lumpy spending on dowry and ceremonies
In much of South Asia weddings and festivals cluster in certain months, and dowry and ceremonies require large lump sums, often borrowed. A seasonal calendar exercise would reveal this. Jajmani payments were in kind at harvest; bridewealth flows from the groom's side, and Bihar is not matrilineal.
Participatory budgeting, in which citizens' assemblies decide on part of municipal investment, began in 1989 in:
B. Porto Alegre, Brazil
Porto Alegre began participatory budgeting in 1989 and it spread worldwide. Kerala's People's Plan Campaign (1996) is a related Indian experience of decentralised planning; Bolivia's Popular Participation Law dates from 1994.
Which statement about rural local government is correct?
C. Kenya's 2010 Constitution devolved functions including agriculture to 47 elected county governments
Kenya's 2010 Constitution created 47 counties with devolved functions, agriculture among them. Bangladesh's lowest tier is the Union Parishad; Nepal created elected rural municipalities (gaunpalika); Bolivia's Popular Participation Law transferred revenue to municipalities.
A mining company seeks land in a Fifth Schedule tribal area in India, financed by a lender that follows international safeguard standards. Which requirement is most directly at stake?
A. Free, prior and informed consent of the indigenous communities, alongside gram sabha consultation under PESA
ILO Convention 169 and UNDRIP (2007) set out free, prior and informed consent for indigenous peoples, adopted in many lenders' safeguard policies; in India PESA requires gram sabha consultation before land acquisition in Scheduled Areas. The State Finance Commission and cooperative law are irrelevant here.
A livelihoods mission plans a dairy programme in a drought-prone block. Using the sustainable livelihoods framework, which element would a planner examine under the 'vulnerability context'?
B. Shocks such as drought and livestock disease, long-term trends, and seasonality of fodder and prices
In the DFID framework, the vulnerability context is shocks, trends and seasonality. Assets are the five capitals; policies, organisations and norms are transforming structures and processes; income and food security are outcomes.
This plan follows where our questions actually fall, so the time goes where the marks are likely to be. It is our reading of the syllabus, not the exam body's weighting.
Read the manual chapters for these first and do every worked question you can find on them.
Aim for one sitting per unit, then mixed questions across them.
Learn the definitions, classifications and standard numbers; these units are more often recalled than worked.
Come back to these after a first pass, untimed, and read every explanation, including for the options you rejected.
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