NCERT Solutions Exploring Society: India and Beyond Chapter 10 The ten pictures of Fig. 10.2 — LET’S EXPLORE

Book page 153 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.

Can you identify the categories of public service or other activities that are represented in the ten pictures in Fig. 10.2 on page 152?

Answer

Yes — reading the ten pictures on page 152 from top left, row by row:

#	What the picture shows	Category of public service
1	Rollers and a paver laying a new highway	Roads and public construction (infrastructure)
2	A modern electric train on an electrified track	Railways — public transport
3	Soldiers marching in uniform with rifles, at a border post	Defence and border security
4	A doctor examining a patient while her family stands by	Public health — hospitals and health centres
5	Rescuers in orange overalls and helmets carrying a person out of a collapsed, burning building	Fire services and disaster relief
6	A traffic police officer with a raised hand, stopping cars at a signal	Police — law, order and traffic control
7	The Supreme Court of India building	Justice — the judiciary
8	A teacher at the blackboard with a full class of children	Education — schools
9	A postman with a letter beside a red letter box and his bicycle	Postal service and communications
10	Customers at the counters of a bank	Banking and finance

Check it yourself: compare this list with Fig. 10.5 on page 157. Defence, Communications, Currency and Inter-state Commerce are listed under the Central Government; Police and law and order, Public health, Agriculture and Irrigation under the State Government; and Education appears under both.

Q2.

What role do you think the government plays in each of these activities?

Answer

In each one the government does at least one of three things: it makes the rules, it pays for and runs the service, or it regulates and supervises those who run it.

Activity	The government’s role	Which level, mainly
Road building	Plans the road, buys the land, pays for it, fixes the standards, awards and supervises the work, and maintains it afterwards	National highways — Centre; State highways — State; streets and lanes — local body
Railways	Owns and runs the network, decides routes, fares and timetables, and is responsible for safety	Central
Defence	Maintains the armed forces, guards the borders. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Armed Forces (Fig. 10.5)	Central — “Defence” is the first item in the Central list
Public health	Runs hospitals, primary health centres and vaccination programmes; trains and pays doctors and nurses; regulates medicines	State (“Public health” is in the State list), with Central programmes
Fire and disaster rescue	Keeps trained teams and equipment ready, and sends them the moment a disaster strikes — as in the chapter’s flood example, where rescue teams come from the State and relief and the army from the Centre	All three levels together
Traffic police	Enforces the traffic rules, controls the signals, fines those who break them — the executive organ ensuring rules are followed	State (“Police, law and order”), through the city police
Courts	Provides the system of justice — Supreme Court of India for all India, High Court in each State, and courts below them	Judiciary, at both levels
Schools	Runs government schools, appoints and pays teachers, decides the syllabus, recognises private schools and inspects them; runs mid-day meals and scholarships	Education is in both the Central and the State lists
Post	Carries letters and parcels to every corner of the country, including places no private company would serve; runs savings schemes	Central — “Communications”
Banking	Issues the currency, sets the rules for banks and supervises them, runs public sector banks, and protects depositors’ money	Central — “Currency”

Why the government does these and not private persons alone: each of these serves everybody and must reach everybody — including the villages and the people who cannot pay. A road cannot be built one house at a time; a border cannot be guarded by one family; a court cannot belong to one side of a dispute. These are exactly the tasks that need a government.

Q3.

Can you think of other aspects of your daily life where the government plays an important role?

Answer

Yes — most of an ordinary day passes through something a government made, runs or regulates. Walk through your own day and list them.

Moment of the day	Where the government is involved
You open the tap	Municipal or panchayat water supply, and the rules about who gets how much; water testing
You switch on a light	The State electricity board or distribution company, the tariff, and the transmission lines
The waste is taken away	The local body — sweeping, collection, the landfill or compost site, the rules on separating waste
You eat breakfast	Food safety standards on the packet, the ration shop for many families, the minimum support price for the farmer who grew the grain
You take a bus or an auto to school	Bus permits and routes, the fare chart, the driver’s licence, the vehicle’s fitness certificate and pollution check
The mid-day meal at school	A government programme, with a fixed menu and quantity per child
Your textbook	Written and published under the NCERT and prescribed by the education department; often given free
Your vaccination card	The national immunisation programme, run through health centres
Your birth certificate, Aadhaar, a passport	Registration and identity — every one of them a government record
The money in your pocket	Currency issued by the Reserve Bank of India; a note is a promise the government stands behind
A phone call or the internet	Spectrum allotted and rules set by the government; and the new laws against cybercrime that the chapter describes
The park, the stadium, the library, the museum	Built and maintained by the local body or the State
The weather warning before a cyclone	The meteorological department, and the disaster management authority that acts on it

Try this: for one full day, keep a small notebook and mark a tick every time you use something a government provides or regulates. Most students cross twenty before lunch. That tally is the best possible answer to the Big Question, “Why do we need a government?”

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