Q.Which industrial policy first divided industries into Schedule A, Schedule B and Schedule C?

This question tests recall of which specific policy statement introduced the three-schedule classification of industries.

The Industrial Policy Resolution, 1956, adopted after Parliament had accepted the goal of a socialistic pattern of society, classified all Indian industries into three schedules: Schedule A (exclusive responsibility of the state, e.g. iron and steel, heavy machine building), Schedule B (state-led, with private enterprise supplementing), and Schedule C (left open to the private sector, subject to regulation).

Checking the other options: (a) the Industrial Policy Resolution, 1948 used a different, four-category classification (exclusive state monopoly; mixed with a ten-year private-continuation window; state-regulated; fully open to private enterprise) — it did not use the Schedule A/B/C terminology. (c) the New Industrial Policy, 1991 moved in the opposite direction, sharply reducing rather than creating the public-sector-exclusive list. (d) the Industries (Development and Regulation) Act, 1951 was the legal framework that empowered the government to license and regulate industries, but it did not itself create the Schedule A/B/C classification — that came from the 1956 policy statement it was used to implement.

Students confuse the 1948 Resolution's four-category classification with the 1956 Resolution's three-schedule classification, since both involve numbered/lettered categories of state versus private involvement — the schedule (A/B/C) terminology specifically belongs to 1956.