NABARD Manager Grade B Agricultural Development & Policy Analysis: practice questions

Question 1 · hard

Why did tenancy legislation in many Indian states often fail to improve tenants' security?

1. Landlords resumed land or shifted to oral, concealed leases, pushing tenancy underground
2. Tenants refused to accept ownership rights
3. Rent ceilings were set above prevailing market rents, so tenants gained nothing from them
4. Tenancy was already illegal in most states before independence, so the laws had nothing to act on

Question 2 · easy

NABARD was established in

1. 1969
2. 1975
3. 1998
4. 1982

Question 3 · hard

The main economic criticism of large farm debt waivers is that they

1. increase the future supply of formal credit to small farmers by cleaning up the banks' balance sheets
2. reduce the fiscal deficit
3. reach landless labourers more than landowners, who mostly borrow from informal moneylenders
4. create moral hazard, damage credit discipline and mainly help those who already had formal loans

Question 4 · easy

India's nutrient-based subsidy (NBS), introduced in April 2010, applies to

1. urea, whose price was fully decontrolled
2. all fertilisers including urea, at a fixed subsidy per tonne of product sold
3. phosphatic and potassic fertilisers, at a fixed subsidy per kg of nutrient
4. organic manures only

Question 5 · medium

Under the National Food Security Act, 2013, an Antyodaya Anna Yojana household is entitled to

1. 5 kg of foodgrains per household per month
2. 35 kg of foodgrains per person per month
3. 35 kg of foodgrains per household per month
4. 5 kg of foodgrains per person per year

Question 6 · hard

Which argument favours in-kind food transfers over cash transfers?

1. In-kind transfers are always cheaper to deliver, because grain can be moved in bulk at low cost
2. In-kind transfers protect against food price inflation and are more self-targeting where local food markets are thin
3. In-kind transfers give households more choice over what they consume than a cash transfer of equal value would
4. In-kind transfers have no effect on market prices

Question 7 · hard

Public works schemes paying a low wage for manual labour are described as 'self-targeting' because

1. officials select the beneficiaries through income and asset tests carried out by the village council
2. only those with few better options choose to work at that wage, so benefits go mainly to the poor
3. they are open only to landowners
4. wages are paid in kind

Question 8 · medium

Gujarat's Jyotigram Yojana (from 2003) improved rural power supply mainly by

1. giving free unlimited electricity to farmers
2. replacing all diesel and electric farm pumps with grid-connected solar pumps
3. feeder separation with rationed farm power
4. charging farmers by the metered volume of groundwater pumped from each tubewell

Question 9 · medium

When farm electricity is supplied free or at a flat rate per pump horsepower, the main economic effect on groundwater use is that

1. the marginal cost of pumping rises with hours used
2. farmers switch to less water-intensive crops such as pulses and oilseeds to save power
3. electricity utilities earn higher revenue from agriculture as pumping hours increase
4. the marginal cost of pumping extra water is close to zero, encouraging over-extraction

Question 10 · hard

Subsidised solar irrigation pumps can worsen groundwater depletion unless

1. the pumps are usually given free of cost
2. electricity for farms is also made free
3. farmers can sell surplus power to the grid, which gives pumping an opportunity cost
4. the pumps are sized well above farm needs so that daytime pumping output is never limiting