By June 2017 about 97 percent of the total debt of state power distribution companies had been covered under the Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana (UDAY). In this scheme, what does the letter D in UDAY stand for?

Introduction / Context:
UDAY, or Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana, is a financial turnaround scheme aimed at improving the health of state power distribution companies in India. These companies, often called DISCOMs, had accumulated large debts due to inefficiencies and losses. The scheme involved state governments taking over a significant portion of these debts and implementing reforms. This question asks you to decode the acronym UDAY correctly by focusing on what the letter D represents.

Given Data / Assumptions:

• The scheme mentioned is Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana, abbreviated as UDAY.
• By June 2017, about 97 percent of total debt of state DISCOMs was covered under the scheme.
• The options for the letter D are Debt, DISCOM, Distribution, and No option is correct.
• We assume basic awareness of power sector reforms in India.

Concept / Approach:
The full form of UDAY is Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana. The word Discom is a short form for distribution company, referring to state level power distribution utilities. In the acronym UDAY, the letter D thus stands for Discom, not for Debt or Distribution as separate words. The scheme assures support for these Discoms, hence the phrase Discom Assurance in the title. The approach is to match the acronym letters with the correct words in the official expansion and then identify which option reproduces that word accurately.

Step-by-Step Solution:
Step 1: Write down the full form Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana. Step 2: Map each letter of UDAY to the respective word: Ujwal for U, Discom for D, Assurance for A, and Yojana for Y. Step 3: Focus on the word corresponding to D, which is Discom, the common short form for power distribution company. Step 4: Compare this with the answer options: Debt, DISCOM, Distribution, and No option is correct. Step 5: Select DISCOM, since it exactly matches the official full form and the word used in the scheme title.

Verification / Alternative check:
A quick verification method is to recall that UDAY was frequently described in news as a scheme for Discoms, and government documents consistently used the phrase Discom Assurance. If D stood for Debt or Distribution, you would expect the scheme name to be Ujwal Debt Assurance Yojana or Ujwal Distribution Assurance Yojana, but these terms do not appear in official descriptions. Therefore, the presence of Discom in the name makes it very clear that D stands for Discom and confirms the correct answer.

Why Other Options Are Wrong:
Debt is incorrect even though UDAY deals with debt because debt is not the actual word used in the full form. Distribution is also wrong because it is only part of the idea behind Discom and does not match the official word. No option is correct is wrong because DISCOM is present as an option and is exactly what D represents in the acronym. Therefore, the only accurate choice is DISCOM as written in capital letters in the official scheme name.

Common Pitfalls:
Students sometimes overthink the economic aspect and select Debt because the scheme is heavily focused on clearing the debts of Discoms. Others may pick Distribution because Discoms handle distribution of electricity. However, acronym questions require precise matching of letters with words, not just a broad link to the scheme objectives. Another pitfall is unfamiliarity with the short form Discom, which can lead to confusion. Regular reading of government scheme names and their official expansions is the best way to avoid such mistakes.

Final Answer:
The correct answer is DISCOM, since in Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana the letter D stands for Discom, referring to power distribution companies.