With reference to Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) which one of the statements is/are correct? 1) It came into existence in 1977. 2) It is headed by the Cabinet Secretary. Select the correct answer from the codes given below:

Only Statement 1 is correct, so the answer is A. The PMO was set up in 1977 under the Morarji Desai government as a separate office to assist the Prime Minister. Before that, the PM's secretariat existed in a less formal form.

Statement 2 is wrong. The PMO is headed by the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, not the Cabinet Secretary. The Cabinet Secretary heads the Cabinet Secretariat, which serves the Union Cabinet and its committees and reports to the Cabinet, not to the PM's office. Both are senior bureaucratic posts, and that is why the two are often confused.

The core concept here is the institutional structure at the top of the Union executive. The PMO is a staff body with no constitutional status. It gives the PM policy coordination, monitoring of government programmes and the single-window link to ministries. This matters for Mains GS-2 questions on executive power, the role of the PMO versus the Cabinet Secretariat, and debates on a 'super bureaucracy'.

Trap: Aspirants see 'Secretary' in both posts and assume the Cabinet Secretary heads the PMO. Remember that the PMO's head is the Principal Secretary, and the Cabinet Secretary is a separate post.