BPSC 69th CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 86 of 144

Correct — A, 1 and 4. Only Valmiki National Park and Bhimbandh Wildlife Sanctuary are in Bihar; the other two were deliberately imported from other states. One government document settles three of the four placements, which is the cleanest way to hold this answer: the Forest Survey of India's India State of Forest Report 2023, Volume 1, whose fire-detection analysis runs over 705 protected areas and tabulates each one against its state. Table 4.10, the national-park roster, runs to 96 entries; number 95 is 'Valmiki — Bihar' and number 20 is 'Dudhwa — Uttar Pradesh', and Valmiki is the only national park entered against Bihar anywhere in the table. Annexure V, which does the same for sanctuaries, conservation reserves and community reserves, enters 'Bhimbandh — Sanctuary — Bihar' at serial 55. Bihar's eleven entries in that annexure are Barela Jheel Salim Ali, Bhimbandh, Kaimur, Kanwarjheel, Kusheshwar Asthan, Nagi Dam, Nakti Dam, Rajgir, Udaypur, Valmiki and Vikramshila — Gajner is not among them, and no Bihar list anywhere contains it. (One honest caveat about that document: the figures beside each name are SNPP-VIIRS fire detections for the 2023-24 fire season, not areas, and Table 4.9 covers 705 protected areas out of a larger national total — 96 national parks, 511 sanctuaries, 22 conservation reserves and 76 community reserves — so absence from it is not by itself proof. Gajner's Rajasthan placement therefore rests on a separate primary source, the Government of Rajasthan tourism department's own Bikaner page.) Valmiki, in West Champaran district on the Nepal border with Bettiah as its nearest town, was notified a wildlife sanctuary in 1978 and a national park in 1990, covers about 898 sq km, and was brought under Project Tiger in 1989-90 as India's 18th tiger reserve, last re-notified as a reserve in 2012 — 598.45 sq km of critical tiger habitat plus a 300.93 sq km buffer, holding 54 tigers in the 2022 All India Tiger Estimation. It is contiguous with Nepal's Chitwan National Park, the Gandak forms its western edge at the Triveni confluence at Valmikinagar, seven Champion and Seth forest types occur in it including Bhabar-Dun Sal and Eastern Wet Alluvial Grassland, 241 bird species have been recorded, and the Raghia block holds a small isolated patch of chir pine. Bhimbandh Wildlife Sanctuary, notified in 1976, spreads about 682 sq km over the Kharagpur Hills in Munger district, south of the Ganga at the northern lip of the Chota Nagpur plateau near Haveli Kharagpur, is an IUCN category IV area, and is best known for its hot springs at Bhimbandh, Sita Kund and Rishi Kund. No code except (a) pairs Valmiki with Bhimbandh.

• (b)2 and 3 — Both items here are outside Bihar, so this option gets two states wrong at once — and gets them wrong at opposite ends of the country, a terai park in the north and a desert-fringe sanctuary in the west. Dudhwa National Park is in Lakhimpur Kheri district of Uttar Pradesh, entered against Uttar Pradesh at serial 20 of ISFR 2023's national-park table, and it anchors the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve along with Kishanpur Wildlife Sanctuary (Lakhimpur Kheri, 227 sq km, founded 1972) and Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary (Bahraich, 400.6 sq km, established 1975), the whole complex having come under Project Tiger in 1987. Gajner Wildlife Sanctuary is in Rajasthan, 32 km from Bikaner on the Jaisalmer road, according to the Government of Rajasthan's own tourism department.
• (c)1 and 3 — Half right, and the commonest way to lose the mark. Valmiki is correctly claimed for Bihar, but Gajner is a Thar-fringe sanctuary of Bikaner district in Rajasthan. Rajasthan Tourism's own Bikaner page describes it as 'barely 32 kilometres from Bikaner, on the Jaisalmer road, … a lush green forest which is a haven to the nilgai, chinkara, black buck, wild boar, flocks of imperial sand grouse and many other species of migratory birds'. It grew around the lake beside Gajner Palace, founded by Maharaja Gaj Singh of Bikaner in 1784 and completed by Maharaja Ganga Singh as a royal hunting lodge — a provenance that has no parallel anywhere in Bihar, where no princely shooting estate became a protected area. A candidate who is sure of Valmiki but has never met Bhimbandh reaches for the only other unfamiliar-sounding name and lands here.
• (d)2 and 4 — The mirror image of (c). Bhimbandh is correctly Bihar's, in Munger district, but Dudhwa belongs to Uttar Pradesh. Dudhwa is genuinely a terai park on the Indo-Nepal border with sal forest, swamp deer and reintroduced one-horned rhino — which makes it feel like it could be in north Bihar, and that is exactly why the examiner picked it. Everything a candidate remembers about Dudhwa is true of Valmiki too: both sit on the Nepal frontier, both are sal-and-grassland terai parks, both are tiger reserves. The only thing that separates them is the state line, and ISFR 2023 draws it — Dudhwa at serial 20 under Uttar Pradesh, Valmiki at serial 95 under Bihar, several hundred kilometres further east.

Under the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 a State Government may notify four categories of protected area: a wildlife sanctuary under section 18, where certain regulated human rights may continue; a national park under section 35, where they may not, which is why national parks are far fewer; and the two later categories inserted by the Wild Life (Protection) Amendment Act, 2002 — conservation reserves under section 36A and community reserves under section 36C. ISFR 2023 gives the national scale of that pyramid — its fire analysis covered 96 national parks, 511 sanctuaries, 22 conservation reserves and 76 community reserves. Bihar sits at the sparse end of it. The state has exactly one national park, Valmiki in West Champaran, and it doubles as the state's only tiger reserve under Project Tiger. Everything else Bihar protects is a wildlife sanctuary: ISFR 2023's annexure carries eleven — Barela Jheel Salim Ali, Bhimbandh, Kaimur, Kanwarjheel, Kusheshwar Asthan, Nagi Dam, Nakti Dam, Rajgir, Udaypur, Valmiki and Vikramshila. Note that Valmiki appears in both lists, as a national park at serial 95 of Table 4.10 and as a sanctuary at serial 593 of Annexure V; the 1978 sanctuary and the 1990 national park are distinct notifications over overlapping ground, not a renaming. That thin protected-area network sits on a thin forest base: Table 1.3 of ISFR 2023 records Bihar's recorded forest area as 693 sq km reserved plus 6,183 sq km protected plus 566 sq km unclassed — 7,442 sq km in all, just 7.90% of a 94,163 sq km state, one of the lowest shares in India. It is also a network under pressure, which is why these two names came up in a fire report at all: Bihar's burnt area in the November 2023 to June 2024 fire season was 682.74 sq km, twelfth highest among the states, and the biggest single concentrations of detections in the state were Valmiki (712 as a sanctuary, 705 as a national park) and Bhimbandh (537) — the very two areas this question is about.

Look at the codes before you look at the names. Item 1 appears only in (a) and (c); item 4 appears only in (a) and (d). So knowing that Valmiki is Bihar's narrows you to (a) or (c), and knowing that Bhimbandh is Bihar's narrows you to (a) or (d) — either way you are left needing a second, independent placement to close the question. One fact is not enough here, which is what makes it harder than it looks. The cleanest second fact is Gajner: it is a Bikaner sanctuary in Rajasthan, and once that is fixed, (b) and (c) both die and only (a) survives. The alternative route is Dudhwa, but Dudhwa is the riskier one to lean on, because a terai park on the Nepal frontier is precisely the profile of Bihar's own Valmiki, and the resemblance is doing the examiner's work. If you can only recall one placement with certainty, recall that Bihar has just one national park — that single line eliminates Dudhwa from Bihar automatically and takes you straight to (a), because items 1 and 2 are both national parks and only one of them can be Bihar's. That is the structural shortcut worth internalising: when a matching-list question mixes categories, check whether the categories themselves are exclusive before you try to place the names. A last cross-check on the naming, since it trips people: Valmiki exists twice in the government records, once as the 1978 wildlife sanctuary and once as the 1990 national park, so seeing 'Valmiki Wildlife Sanctuary' somewhere does not mean item 1 is misdescribed.

• ISFR 2023 (Forest Survey of India): the national-park roster enters Valmiki against Bihar and Dudhwa against Uttar Pradesh; Valmiki is the only national park entered against Bihar
• Valmiki: West Champaran district; wildlife sanctuary 1978, national park 1990; about 898 sq km; India's 18th tiger reserve, brought under Project Tiger in 1989-90; core 598.45 sq km plus buffer 300.93 sq km; 54 tigers in the 2022 All India Tiger Estimation; contiguous with Nepal's Chitwan National Park
• Bhimbandh Wildlife Sanctuary: Munger district, notified 1976, about 682 sq km on the Kharagpur Hills; hot springs at Bhimbandh, Sita Kund and Rishi Kund
• Gajner Wildlife Sanctuary is 32 km from Bikaner on the Jaisalmer road in Rajasthan (Government of Rajasthan, Department of Tourism); Dudhwa National Park is in Lakhimpur Kheri district, Uttar Pradesh, and forms Dudhwa Tiger Reserve with Kishanpur and Katarniaghat sanctuaries
• Bihar sanctuaries listed in ISFR 2023's annexure: Barela Jheel Salim Ali, Bhimbandh, Kaimur, Kanwarjheel, Kusheshwar Asthan, Nagi Dam, Nakti Dam, Rajgir, Udaypur, Valmiki, Vikramshila
• Bihar's recorded forest area is 7,442 sq km, 7.90% of the state's 94,163 sq km (ISFR 2023, Table 1.3: 693 reserved + 6,183 protected + 566 unclassed) — among the lowest shares of any Indian state
• Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972: sanctuary under section 18, national park under section 35, conservation reserve under section 36A and community reserve under section 36C, the last two inserted by the 2002 amendment; ISFR 2023's fire analysis covered 96 national parks, 511 sanctuaries, 22 conservation reserves and 76 community reserves
• Valmiki appears in ISFR 2023 twice — as national park serial 95 and as sanctuary serial 593 — because the 1978 sanctuary notification and the 1990 national park notification both stand; it was last re-notified as a tiger reserve in 2012
• Valmiki holds seven Champion and Seth forest types including Bhabar-Dun Sal and Eastern Wet Alluvial Grassland, 241 recorded bird species and an isolated chir pine patch in the Raghia block; the Gandak marks its western boundary, entering the plains at the Triveni confluence at Valmikinagar
• Dudhwa Tiger Reserve comprises Dudhwa National Park plus Kishanpur Wildlife Sanctuary (227 sq km, 1972) and Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary (Bahraich, 400.6 sq km, 1975), brought under Project Tiger in 1987 — all in Uttar Pradesh
• Bihar's burnt area in the fire season November 2023 – June 2024 was 682.74 sq km, twelfth among Indian states; within the state the heaviest detections were at Valmiki (712 sanctuary / 705 national park) and Bhimbandh (537), with Kaimur at 255 and Rajgir at 1

• Assuming any terai park on the Nepal border must be in Bihar — Dudhwa, Katarniaghat and Kishanpur are all Uttar Pradesh's
• Treating Rajgir, Kaimur or Vikramshila as national parks; they are wildlife sanctuaries, and Valmiki is Bihar's only national park
• Mixing up Valmiki National Park with Valmiki Wildlife Sanctuary — both exist, the sanctuary came first in 1978 and the national park was carved from it in 1990

BPSC asks Bihar's protected areas by name and expects the state roster to be memorised, usually as a select-the-correct-items code with one or two names planted from other states — the 71st CCE did it again in 2025 by asking which Bihar park is under Project Tiger, with Bhimbandh and Udaypur as the decoys. UPSC almost never asks a bare 'which state' for a well-known park; it either pairs the area with a state, a river or a species and asks which pairs match, or asks which listed protected areas fall inside a named river basin.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Bhimbandh Wildlife Sanctuary, known for its hot springs, lies in which district of Bihar?

  • (a)Munger
  • (b)Bhagalpur
  • (c)Jamui
  • (d)Nawada

  Answer(a) Munger — the sanctuary was notified in 1976 and spreads about 682 sq km over the Kharagpur Hills, with hot springs at Bhimbandh, Sita Kund and Rishi Kund.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following is the only National Park in Bihar?

  • (a)Rajgir
  • (b)Kaimur
  • (c)Valmiki
  • (d)Vikramshila

  Answer(c) Valmiki — in West Champaran district, notified a national park in 1990 and Bihar's only tiger reserve; Rajgir, Kaimur and Vikramshila are wildlife sanctuaries.