Environmental Laws and Bodies in India: Acts and PYQs

The correct answer is C, Union Carbide. On the night of 2 and 3 December 1984, methyl isocyanate gas leaked from the pesticide plant of Union Carbide India Limited at Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, killing thousands of people and injuring many more. The disaster directly led Parliament to pass the Environment (Protection) Act in 1986 and later the Public Liability Insurance Act of 1991.

Option A, Exide, is a battery manufacturer and had no plant involved in the leak. Option B, Bharat Rasayan Limited, is an agrochemical company but is unconnected with Bhopal. Option D, UPL Limited, is another agrochemical firm and is likewise unrelated to the tragedy. For the examination, remember the chain: Union Carbide, methyl isocyanate, Bhopal, December 1984, and the Environment (Protection) Act of 1986 that followed it.

The correct answer is B, IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Founded in 1948 and based in Switzerland, it maintains the Red List of Threatened Species, which grades species as least concern, near threatened, vulnerable, endangered, critically endangered, extinct in the wild or extinct. It is the standard reference used by governments and by examiners.

Option A, the United Nations Organisation, is the parent body of many agencies but does not itself compile the list; its environment arm, the United Nations Environment Programme, works with IUCN rather than replacing it. Option C, the World Health Organisation, deals with human health and disease. Option D, the World Wide Fund for Nature, is a conservation organisation known for its panda emblem and for the Living Planet Report, and it is the commonest wrong choice here because it works in the same field, but the Red List belongs to IUCN.

The correct answer is B, 2001. The Stockholm Convention was adopted in 2001 and came into force in 2004. It aims to eliminate or restrict persistent organic pollutants, chemicals such as some pesticides and industrial compounds that resist breaking down, travel long distances, accumulate in fatty tissue and harm human health; the original list was known as the dirty dozen. India is a party to the convention.

Option A, 2000, is the year of the Cartagena Protocol on biosafety, made under the Convention on Biological Diversity, and is easy to confuse. Option C, 1998, is the year of the Rotterdam Convention on prior informed consent for hazardous chemicals in trade, which is a related but separate treaty. Option D, 1999, has no major chemical convention attached to it. The chemical trio worth memorising is Basel in 1989 on hazardous waste, Rotterdam in 1998 on trade in chemicals, and Stockholm in 2001 on persistent organic pollutants.

The correct answer is D, 2019. The National Clean Air Programme was launched by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in January 2019 as a national framework to cut particulate pollution in cities that do not meet the national ambient air quality standards. It works city by city, through action plans prepared with the State Pollution Control Boards and monitored by the Central Pollution Control Board.

Option A, 2018, is the year the draft of the programme was put out for comments, which is why it is the most tempting wrong answer. Option B, 2017, predates the proposal altogether. Option C, 2020, is later than the launch and is sometimes confused with the creation of the Commission for Air Quality Management for the national capital region, which came afterwards. Remember 2019 for the programme, and remember that its legal backing comes from the Air Act of 1981 and the Environment (Protection) Act of 1986.

The correct answer is C, 1986. The Act was passed in the wake of the Bhopal gas tragedy and gives the central government a general power to take any measure it considers necessary to protect and improve the quality of the environment. Because so many rules are framed under it, on hazardous waste, noise, plastic waste, electronic waste and environmental impact assessment, it is called an umbrella legislation.

Option A, 1974, is the year of the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, which created the pollution control boards. Option B, 1981, is the year of the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, which extended the work of those boards to air quality. Option D, 1991, is the year of the Public Liability Insurance Act, which requires industries handling hazardous substances to carry insurance for accident victims. The trap in this question is to answer 1984, the year of the accident rather than of the Act.

The correct answer is C, 2010. The National Green Tribunal Act was passed in 2010 and the tribunal began work in the same year, to provide quick and specialised disposal of cases on environmental protection and forest conservation. Its principal bench is at New Delhi, it has zonal benches at Bhopal, Pune, Kolkata and Chennai, and it is headed by a retired judge of the Supreme Court.

Option A, 1995, is the year of the National Environment Tribunal Act, an earlier attempt that never really functioned and was superseded by the 2010 Act. Option B, 2006, is the year of the Forest Rights Act and also of the amendment that made the National Tiger Conservation Authority statutory. Option D, 2016, is the year of the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act. Only 2010 belongs to the tribunal, and the tribunal's decisions are appealable to the Supreme Court.

The correct answer is B, the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974. The Board was created by that Act to advise the central government, to lay down standards for effluents and to coordinate the work of the State Pollution Control Boards, which were set up by the same law in the states.

Option A, the Air Act of 1981, did not create the Board; it entrusted the existing Board with additional functions relating to air quality, which is exactly why this option is the popular wrong answer. Option C, the Environment (Protection) Act of 1986, is the umbrella law under which most environmental rules are framed, but the Board predates it by twelve years. Option D, the Factories Act of 1948, deals with the safety, health and working conditions of factory workers and creates inspectorates, not pollution boards. The pairing to remember is Water Act 1974 with the Boards, Air Act 1981 with their extra duties.

The correct answer is B, Chennai. The Authority was set up under the Biological Diversity Act of 2002 and is based at Chennai in Tamil Nadu. It regulates access to India's biological resources and the sharing of benefits arising from their use, and it works through State Biodiversity Boards and Biodiversity Management Committees at the local level.

Option A, New Delhi, is where the ministry and the principal bench of the National Green Tribunal sit, and candidates often assume every national authority must be there. Option C, Dehradun, is the headquarters of the Forest Survey of India, of the Wildlife Institute of India and of the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education, so it belongs to a different set of bodies. Option D, Hyderabad, hosted the eleventh Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in 2012, which is why it appears here as a distractor, but it is not the seat of the Authority.

The correct answer is A, the Forty-second Amendment of 1976. It added Article 48A to the directive principles, asking the state to protect and improve the environment and to safeguard forests and wildlife, and Article 51A, clause g, to the fundamental duties, laying the same obligation on every citizen. The same amendment also shifted forests and the protection of wild animals and birds from the State List to the Concurrent List.

Option B, the Forty-fourth Amendment of 1978, undid several changes of the emergency period and removed the right to property from the fundamental rights. Option C, the Seventy-third Amendment of 1992, gave constitutional status to panchayats. Option D, the Eighty-sixth Amendment of 2002, made elementary education a fundamental right under Article 21A. Only the Forty-second Amendment carries the environmental provisions, and it is also the amendment that introduced the fundamental duties in the first place.

The correct answer is A, wetlands. The convention was signed in 1971 at Ramsar, a town in Iran, and is the oldest of the modern global conservation treaties. Wetlands listed under it are called Ramsar sites, and countries that are parties undertake to use them wisely and to maintain their ecological character.

Option B, tropical forests, is dealt with by other instruments, chiefly the Convention on Biological Diversity and the forest related work under the climate convention. Option C, the ozone layer, is the subject of the Vienna Convention of 1985 and the Montreal Protocol of 1987. Option D, migratory whales, falls under the International Whaling Commission, while migratory species in general are covered by the Bonn Convention of 1979. The one word to attach to Ramsar is wetlands, and the year to attach to it is 1971.

The correct answer is B, substances that deplete the ozone layer. The Montreal Protocol was adopted under the Vienna Convention of 1985 and sets a timetable for phasing out chlorofluorocarbons, halons and similar chemicals. It is often described as the most successful environmental treaty, and 16 September is observed as the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer.

Option A, greenhouse gases, belongs to the climate regime: the Framework Convention of 1992, the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 and the Paris Agreement of 2015. Option C, hazardous waste moving across borders, is the subject of the Basel Convention of 1989. Option D, trade in endangered species, is covered by CITES, agreed in 1973. Candidates lose this mark by confusing Montreal with Kyoto, so fix the pair firmly: Montreal for ozone, Kyoto for climate.

The correct answer is B, the Forest Survey of India. Set up in 1981 and based at Dehradun, it assesses the country's forest and tree cover from satellite data and brings out the India State of Forest Report once every two years, giving the cover state by state and by density class.

Option A, the Central Pollution Control Board, monitors air and water quality and publishes air quality data, not forest cover. Option C, the Botanical Survey of India, founded in 1890 and headquartered at Kolkata, surveys the plant wealth of the country and publishes floras, which is close in subject but different in task. Option D, the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education, also at Dehradun, coordinates research and education in forestry rather than the national assessment of cover. The pairing to remember is Forest Survey of India, Dehradun, and the biennial report.