CAQM Clears Revised GRAP Schedule With 48 Actions for NCR

The correct answer is 48. The revised GRAP schedule cleared by the Commission for Air Quality Management carries 25 actions in Stage-I, 8 actions in Stage-II, 10 actions in Stage-III and 5 actions in Stage-IV, which adds up to 48 actions in all. The reduction in repetition came from merging duplicated instructions on dust control, municipal solid waste handling and transport within Stage-I. Options A, B and D give totals that do not match the stage-wise break-up: adding the four stage figures cannot yield 36, 42 or 54, so each of them is wrong. Candidates should memorise both the total and the stage-wise split, because a paper setter may ask for either the aggregate number of actions or the count in a single stage.

The correct answer is Sonipat. Under the revised schedule the bar on running BS-III petrol and BS-IV diesel or older four-wheelers has been extended to Sonipat, over and above the high vehicular density districts where it already applied, namely Gurugram, Faridabad, Ghaziabad and Gautam Budh Nagar. Option B, Panipat, is a Haryana district but was not named in this extension. Option C, Meerut, lies in the Uttar Pradesh part of the National Capital Region but is likewise not part of the newly covered area for this particular curb. Option D, Alwar, in Rajasthan, is also within the wider region yet was not added. Candidates should also remember the four districts where the curb was already in force, since a question may instead ask which district is not part of the fresh addition. Only Sonipat was named as the new area, so option A is correct.

The correct answer is Stage-I. The Commission shifted the actions dealing with diesel generator sets and with the entry of buses of BS-IV standard and below coming from the National Capital Region and the adjoining states out of Stage-II and into Stage-I. Because GRAP stages are triggered in ascending order as air quality worsens, moving a measure to Stage-I means it begins to apply at an earlier and less severe stage of pollution, tightening the response. Option B is where these actions previously sat, so it is the old position and not the new one. Options C and D, Stage-III and Stage-IV, cover the severe and severe-plus categories and are not where these two actions were placed. Hence option A is right.

The correct answer is 500 square metres. While approving the amendment that widens web portal based registration and monitoring of dust control measures to construction and demolition projects lying beyond municipal limits, in controlled areas, development and industrial development areas, industrial zones and highway corridor zones, the Commission specifically kept the existing plot area threshold of 500 square metres and the other existing requirements unchanged. Options A and B name smaller thresholds that would have brought in far more sites, and option D names a larger one that would have excluded many projects; none of these was adopted. The point to remember is that the geographical coverage was widened but the size trigger itself was left as it was.