The Government of India passed the Environment (Protection) Act to protect and improve the quality of environment in:

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — B, 1986. The Environment (Protection) Act is Act No. 29 of 1986; it was passed by Parliament in 1986 and brought into force on 19 November 1986. Parliament used Article 253 (power to legislate to implement international agreements) so that a single central law could give effect to the decisions of the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment at Stockholm. It is an umbrella law: it lets the Centre lay down standards for emissions and discharges, restrict industries and processes in any area, order closure or stoppage of a polluting unit, and make rules — which is why so much later environmental regulation is issued under it rather than as fresh Acts.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) 1981 is the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act — a single-medium law for air pollution. It came five years before the umbrella Environment (Protection) Act and is the most commonly confused year here.  (c) No Environment (Protection) Act was passed in 1988. What 1988 does carry is the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Amendment Act and the Motor Vehicles Act — neither is the parent environmental legislation.  (d) 1998 belongs to rules made under the 1986 Act, not to the Act itself — for example the Bio-Medical Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 1998. Subordinate rules issued under a parent Act do not change the parent Act's year.

Concept: India's environmental statutes came in a definite order, each with a narrower or wider job. Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974 → Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 → Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981 → Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. The 1986 Act is the widest of them: it defines 'environment', 'environmental pollutant' and 'hazardous substance' broadly and gives the Central Government general powers to take 'all such measures as it deems necessary' to protect and improve environmental quality.

State PCS 2025 Q87 — Environment & Ecology PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q87 — Environment & Ecology PYQ with Answer