Which committee recommended that the whole of the Western Ghats be treated as an ecologically sensitive area and graded into three zones?

The correct answer is C, the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. The Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change notifies an Eco-Sensitive Zone using the power in Section 3(2)(v) of that Act, read with Rule 5(1) of the Environment (Protection) Rules, 1986, which lets the central government restrict industries and operations in an area it treats as fragile. Option A is wrong because the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 creates the National Park or Sanctuary itself and governs what happens inside it, not the belt of land around it. Option B is wrong because the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 only controls the diversion of forest land to non-forest use and says nothing about zones around protected areas. Option D is wrong because the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 deals with access to biological resources, benefit sharing and biodiversity heritage sites, a different instrument altogether.

The correct answer is C, 2012. The Western Ghats were added to the World Heritage List in 2012 as a serial natural property, that is, a single listing made up of thirty-nine separate sites scattered through Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra rather than one continuous block of land. They qualified on the criterion of outstanding natural value, the very high number of species found only there and the role of the chain in driving the south-west monsoon. Option A is wrong, though 2004 is worth remembering for the listing of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus. Option B is wrong because no Indian natural site was inscribed in 2008. Option D is wrong because the natural listing of 2016 was the Khangchendzonga National Park in Sikkim, a mixed site, and candidates often confuse the two.

The correct answer is C, about 37 per cent. The group that K. Kasturirangan headed reported in 2013 and used satellite imagery to separate the natural landscape of the Ghats from the cultivated and built-up land. It then recommended that only the natural part, close to sixty thousand square kilometres and roughly 37 per cent of the whole chain, be declared ecologically sensitive, with mining, quarrying, thermal power stations, red-category industries and large townships prohibited inside it. Option A and option B are wrong because they understate the recommended area and match no report on the Ghats. Option D is wrong because treating the entire range as sensitive was the Gadgil panel's position of 2011, and it was precisely the objection of the states to that position which led to the appointment of the Kasturirangan group.

The correct answer is C, 500 metres. The Coastal Regulation Zone notification fixes the landward limit of the regulated belt at 500 metres from the High Tide Line along the sea, and that figure has stayed the same through the notifications of 1991, 2011 and 2019. Option A is wrong, but it is the figure to remember for a different line: along rivers, creeks and backwaters influenced by the tide the zone is 100 metres or the width of the water body, whichever is less. Option B is wrong, although 200 metres was the No Development Zone fixed for rural CRZ-III areas, which the 2019 notification reduced to 50 metres for densely populated rural stretches. Option D is wrong because no CRZ notification has used a landward limit of one kilometre. Separating the 500 metre zone from the 100 metre creek belt is the usual trap.

The correct answer is A, CRZ-I. This category holds the ecologically sensitive stretches of the coast, and the notification lists mangroves, coral reefs and coral areas, sand dunes, salt marshes, mudflats, biologically active areas and the nesting grounds of turtles and birds in its sub-category CRZ-I-A, where construction is effectively barred. The intertidal belt between the Low Tide Line and the High Tide Line is CRZ-I-B. Option B is wrong because CRZ-II covers coastal areas that are already developed up to or close to the shoreline and lie inside municipal limits. Option C is wrong because CRZ-III covers relatively undisturbed rural areas, which are split into the densely populated III-A and the rest, III-B. Option D is wrong because CRZ-IV is the water area itself, from the Low Tide Line out to twelve nautical miles.