SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 19 September 2025, Shift 3 · General Awareness · Question 21 of 100

We transcribed this text from the pictures on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; the answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 11 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. From 2025 the candidate response sheet prints every question and option as a picture, so the text here is transcribed from those pictures for this shift and checked against them independently; where the layout carries meaning, the picture is shown as well. Each answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. SSC released a tentative key for challenge and later its final one, both only to candidates behind a login, and the sheet does not say which of the two it carries. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Which Indian state became the first to notify all its wetlands under the Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2017 by mid-2025?

(a)Kerala
(b)Odisha
(c)Madhya Pradesh
(d)Himachal Pradesh

Answer

Why

Correct — B. SSC's key names Odisha as the State that, by mid-2025, became the first to notify all its wetlands under the Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2017.

Those Rules leave it to each State to identify its wetlands for notification, delineate them and list the activities to be regulated in them. Odisha → option (b).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Kerala — The key does not name Kerala. Its Ramsar sites include Vembanad-Kol and Sasthamkotta Lake, both designated in 2002, but a Ramsar listing is a different step from notification under the 2017 Rules.
(c)
Madhya Pradesh — The key does not name Madhya Pradesh. Its Ramsar sites include the Bhoj Wetlands (2002) and Tawa Reservoir (2024), but a Ramsar listing is a different step from notification under the 2017 Rules.
(d)
Himachal Pradesh — The key does not name Himachal Pradesh. Its Ramsar sites include Pong Dam Lake (2002) and the Chandertal and Renuka wetlands (2005), but a Ramsar listing is not notification under the 2017 Rules.

Concept

The 2017 Rules were notified by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. Each State or UT has a State Wetlands Authority to identify, delineate and regulate its wetlands.

Notification is the State's legal step under the Rules. Ramsar designation is different: it lists a wetland of international importance under a treaty.

The notification this stem describes could not be traced to a primary source, so this card rests on SSC's key.

Key facts

The Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2017 were notified under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.
Chilika Lake in Odisha and Keoladeo in Rajasthan became India's first Ramsar sites on 1 October 1981.
Odisha's Ramsar sites include Chilika Lake, Bhitarkanika Mangroves, Satkosia Gorge, Tampara Lake, Hirakud Reservoir and Ansupa Lake.
World Wetlands Day, 2 February, marks the signing of the Ramsar Convention in 1971.

Study next

Ramsar sites of India by StateNational Plan for Conservation of Aquatic EcosystemsAmrit Dharohar and Mission Sahbhagita

Common traps

Treating notification under the 2017 Rules as the same thing as Ramsar designation: one is a national legal step, the other an international listing.
Reading 'first to notify all its wetlands' as 'first to notify any wetland'.

Wetlands are also asked through a Ramsar designation at 14 Sep 2025, 09:00, GA Q.23 (Sarsai Nawar), and through the Amrit Dharohar scheme at 26 Sep 2024, 16:00, GA Q.17.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.