Sectors of the Indian economy
Class 10 Social Science · Economics · 23 questions with answers
Economics is the shortest book in the Class 10 syllabus and the most vocabulary-precise. Primary, secondary and tertiary; organised and unorganised; public and private - these are three separate classifications of the same economy, and mixing them up is the single commonest way marks are lost here.
- Classifies an activity by sector under all three classifications
- Explains why the tertiary sector has grown
- Distinguishes underemployment from open unemployment
- Explains what protection the organised sector offers and the unorganised does not
Exercise 1 of 3 · 10 questions
Primary, secondary or tertiary? Give the reason.
Write the answer · Warm-up
Here’s one done for you
The weaver is the useful case. Handloom work is done by hand and often at home, which makes it feel primary or informal - but the classification is about what happens to the product, not about scale or technology. Yarn is being turned into cloth, so it is secondary. Sector classification depends on the nature of the activity alone, and questions are set precisely on that confusion.
- 1)A farmer growing wheat
- 2)A factory making biscuits
- 3)A bank clerk
- 4)Fishing
- 5)A weaver at a handloom
- 6)A software engineer
- 7)A doctor in a hospital
- 8)Mining coal
- 9)A tailor stitching shirts to order
- 10)A transport operator
Answers
- 1) Primary - the product is obtained directly from a natural resource.
- 2) Secondary - a natural product, wheat, is transformed into a manufactured one.
- 3) Tertiary - it produces a service that supports the other two sectors rather than a good.
- 4) Primary - the product is taken directly from nature.
- 5) Secondary - yarn is converted into cloth, which is manufacturing regardless of the scale.
- 6) Tertiary - a service, even though nothing physical is produced.
- 7) Tertiary, because it is a service - it supports production without making a good.
- 8) Primary, because it extracts a resource directly from nature.
- 9) Secondary, because a raw material is being turned into a finished good.
- 10) Tertiary, because it provides a service that helps goods and people move.
Exercise 2 of 3 · 7 questions
Organised or unorganised? Name one protection the worker does or does not get.
Write the answer · Guided
Here’s one done for you
The organised sector is not defined by whether the work is skilled or the employer large. It is defined by registration and by whether the terms of employment are regulated and enforceable. A skilled worker in an unregistered workshop is in the unorganised sector, and stating the definition that way - rather than by size or skill - is what gets the mark.
- 1)A teacher in a government school
- 2)A construction worker hired by the day
- 3)An employee of a large private bank
- 4)A street vendor
- 5)A worker in a small workshop with no registration
- 6)A daily-wage worker at a brick kiln
- 7)A nurse employed by a large private hospital
Answers
- 1) Organised - with fixed hours, paid leave, provident fund and job security.
- 2) Unorganised - no job security, no paid leave, and employment that can end without notice.
- 3) Organised - registered employment with regulated terms and social security benefits.
- 4) Unorganised - self-employed with no fixed income, no benefits and no legal protection of the workplace.
- 5) Unorganised - the enterprise is not registered, so the rules on wages and conditions are not enforced.
- 6) Unorganised. There is no fixed appointment, no leave and no notice period, so the worker can be dismissed on any day without recourse.
- 7) Organised. The job carries fixed hours, paid leave and provident fund, and the employer is registered and subject to labour law.
Exercise 3 of 3 · 6 questions
Answer in two or three sentences.
Write the answer · Practice
Here’s one done for you
The GDP answer is a favourite because it can be explained with one chain: wheat, flour, bread. The value of the wheat is already inside the price of the bread, so counting both would double-count the same production. A child who can give that chain can answer the question in any phrasing, and this is exactly the kind of precision Class 10 Economics is marked on.
- 1)Why has the tertiary sector become the largest producer in India?
- 2)What is underemployment, and how does it differ from unemployment?
- 3)What does MGNREGA guarantee, and why was it introduced?
- 4)Why is GDP measured using only final goods and services?
- 5)What is the difference between the organised and unorganised sectors, and why does it matter?
- 6)Why is it a problem if the tertiary sector grows while employment does not?
Answers
- 1) Because basic services like education, health, transport, banking and administration expand as an economy develops, and the primary and secondary sectors themselves require more services as they grow. Rising incomes have also increased demand for services such as tourism, private schooling and healthcare, and information technology has grown rapidly.
- 2) Underemployment means people are working but their full capacity is not used - they appear employed while contributing less than they could, as on a family farm where five people do work that three could manage. Unemployment means having no work at all, so underemployment is often called hidden or disguised.
- 3) It guarantees a hundred days of wage employment in a year to rural households whose adult members volunteer for unskilled manual work, and an allowance if work is not provided. It was introduced because rural underemployment left many households without enough income even though they were nominally employed.
- 4) Because counting intermediate goods as well would count the same value more than once. The value of the wheat is already contained in the price of the flour, and the flour in the bread - so counting all three would multiply the same production several times over.
- 5) The organised sector is registered and follows rules on hours, wages, leave and social security; the unorganised sector is not, so work there is irregular and unprotected. It matters because most Indian workers are in the unorganised sector, so the protections written into law reach only a minority of them.
- 6) Because output can rise through a few highly skilled, highly paid activities - software, finance - that employ relatively few people. The economy then grows without absorbing the workers leaving agriculture, which leaves underemployment untouched.
While your child works
- Three separate classifications - primary/secondary/tertiary, organised/unorganised, public/private. Mixing them is the commonest error.
- Organised means registered and regulated, not large or skilled. Say that once.
- Start this book early. It is the shortest and the most reliably scored of the four.