Home › PYQs › Agriculture › All questions › 2025 · Indigenous cattle
UPSC Prelims 2025 · Agriculture · Beyond Crops
Consider the following statements about the Rashtriya Gokul Mission:
- It is important for the upliftment of rural poor as majority of low producing indigenous animals are with small and marginal farmers and landless labourers.
- It was initiated to promote indigenous cattle and buffalo rearing and conservation in a scientific and holistic manner.
- (a) I only
- (b) II only
- (c) Both I and II
- (d) Neither I nor II
Show the answer and explanation
Answer: (c) Both I and II
Objective (conserve desi cattle and buffalo) + why it matters (they’re kept by the poorest households).
Statement by statement
1. ✓ CORRECT Most low-yield desi cattle belong to small, marginal and landless households; raising their productivity raises those incomes directly.
2. ✓ CORRECT Launched in December 2014 to conserve and develop indigenous bovine breeds — Gir, Sahiwal, Red Sindhi, Tharparkar and others.
The idea
Tools under the mission: Gokul Grams (integrated breeding centres), sex-sorted semen, IVF, and a national bovine genomic centre.
Why the others are wrong
(a) Drops II — yet conserving indigenous cattle AND buffalo is the mission’s stated aim.
(b) Drops I, thinking it is a social line added as a trap. Desi breeds are mostly kept by small and landless households, so the mission targets them.
(d) Would mean the mission is neither about indigenous breeds nor about poor keepers — the reverse of its design.
The trap
Statement I sounds like a social-justice line added to trick you. It is written into the mission’s own rationale.
🔒 Rashtriya Gokul Mission (2014) = indigenous cattle AND buffalo · breed improvement · helps small and landless keepers.