UPPSC 2025 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 109 of 150

Correct — B, 2 and 3 — Chandauli and Shravasti. On the India State of Forest Report 2023 figures, forest cover works out to about 21 per cent of the geographical area in Chandauli and about 21 per cent in Shravasti, both clearing the question's 20 per cent bar, while Bahraich sits at only about 10 per cent and does not. Chandauli is the intuitive half: it lies on the Vindhyan escarpment of south-eastern Uttar Pradesh, next to Sonbhadra and Mirzapur in the state's one genuinely forested belt, and it holds the Chandraprabha Wildlife Sanctuary. Shravasti is the half that surprises people, and it is worth being precise about why. Its forest cover is 284.54 square kilometres. Divide that by the district area that FSI itself uses, roughly 1,358 square kilometres, and you get about 21 per cent; divide the same forest area by the district area of about 1,640 square kilometres that many general sources quote, and you get the 17.35 per cent figure that circulates online. The question says 'As per the India State of Forest Report 2023', so it is FSI's own denominator that governs, and on that basis Shravasti crosses 20 per cent. Read these district percentages as approximate rather than to two decimals — the point being tested is which side of the 20 per cent line each district falls on.

• (a)1 and 2 — Chandauli belongs, but Bahraich does not — it comes in at only about 10 per cent, half the threshold. Bahraich is the district candidates most often over-rate, because it contains the Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary, a well-known part of the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve landscape on the Nepal border. But Katarniaghat's forest is a block inside a very large district whose remaining area is intensively cultivated terai plain, so the sanctuary lifts the district's absolute forest area without lifting its percentage anywhere near 20.
• (c)Only 3 — Shravasti does clear the bar, but so does Chandauli, so this option is incomplete. Chandauli sits in the Vindhyan hill country of south-eastern Uttar Pradesh alongside Sonbhadra and Mirzapur — the only part of the state where dry deciduous forest survives on any scale — and it is home to the Chandraprabha Wildlife Sanctuary. Leaving it out means treating the state's second most forested district as though it were plains country.
• (d)Only 1 — This picks the single district that fails the test and drops the two that pass. Bahraich's forest cover is only around 10 per cent of its area; the presence of a famous sanctuary within a district is not the same thing as a high share of forest across the whole district.

The India State of Forest Report is the biennial assessment published by the Forest Survey of India, Dehradun, under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change; the 2023 edition was released in December 2024. Its central measure, forest cover, is defined by what the satellite sees rather than by who owns the land: any patch of one hectare or more with a tree canopy density of at least ten per cent counts as forest cover, whatever its legal status, so plantations, orchards and trees outside notified forests are all included. That cover is then graded as very dense forest at seventy per cent canopy and above, moderately dense between forty and seventy, and open forest between ten and forty, with scrub below ten per cent counted separately. Because forest cover is a satellite measure and recorded forest area is a legal-revenue measure, the two produce different numbers for the same district or state — which is exactly the kind of gap that makes questions like this one turn on the denominator rather than the numerator.

Uttar Pradesh is one of India's least forested large states — its forest cover is roughly fifteen thousand square kilometres, about six per cent of its geographical area — so a question asking which UP districts exceed twenty per cent is really asking which districts sit outside the Ganga plain. The state's forest is concentrated in the Vindhyan and Bundelkhand south: Sonbhadra is the most forested district by a wide margin, followed by Chandauli, Mirzapur, Chitrakoot and Lalitpur; the terai belt along the Nepal border adds Lakhimpur Kheri, Bahraich and Shravasti's neighbourhood. That geography gets you Chandauli immediately and makes Shravasti plausible as a terai district, while Bahraich fails not because it has no forest but because it is too large for the forest it has. The general lesson worth carrying away is the one this question hides: a percentage has two halves, and when a district's forest area is fixed, the answer depends entirely on which area figure you divide by. Always take the denominator from the same report the question names.

• The India State of Forest Report is published every two years by the Forest Survey of India, Dehradun, under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change; the 2023 edition was released in December 2024
• Forest cover in the ISFR means all land of one hectare or more with a tree canopy density of at least ten per cent, irrespective of ownership or legal status — which is why it differs from recorded forest area
• Forest cover is classed as very dense forest at canopy density of seventy per cent or more, moderately dense forest between forty and seventy per cent, and open forest between ten and forty per cent; scrub, below ten per cent, is reported separately
• Uttar Pradesh has about fifteen thousand square kilometres of forest cover, roughly six per cent of its geographical area — among the lowest shares of any large Indian state
• Chandauli at about 21 per cent and Shravasti at about 21 per cent clear the 20 per cent mark; Bahraich, despite containing the Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary, is only about 10 per cent
• Shravasti's forest cover is 284.54 square kilometres — about 21 per cent on FSI's own district-area figure of roughly 1,358 square kilometres, but 17.35 per cent if divided by the widely quoted district area of about 1,640 square kilometres
• Sonbhadra is Uttar Pradesh's most forested district, at roughly 36 to 37 per cent, followed by Chandauli, Mirzapur, Chitrakoot and Lalitpur — all in the Vindhyan and Bundelkhand south

• Assuming a district with a famous protected area must have a high percentage of forest — Bahraich has Katarniaghat and still comes in around 10 per cent, because the district is large and mostly cultivated
• Taking a district percentage from a general web source without checking which area figure it was divided by; for Shravasti the same forest area yields either 21 per cent or 17.35 per cent depending on the denominator
• Confusing forest cover with recorded or notified forest area — the ISFR measures canopy from satellite imagery, not legal status
• Forgetting that Uttar Pradesh as a whole is only about six per cent forested, so twenty per cent is a genuinely high bar for one of its districts

UPPSC asks the ISFR at district level for Uttar Pradesh — which districts clear a threshold, which have no forest at all, as it did in 2023 — while UPSC asks it at state level, usually as a ranking or ordering question or as a check on the report's definitions.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  As per the India State of Forest Report 2023, which one of the following States has the largest forest cover in terms of area?

  • (a)Arunachal Pradesh
  • (b)Chhattisgarh
  • (c)Madhya Pradesh
  • (d)Maharashtra

  Answer(c) Madhya Pradesh — it has the largest forest cover by area, followed by Arunachal Pradesh and Chhattisgarh; the ranking by percentage of geographical area is quite different and is led by the north-eastern states.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  In the India State of Forest Report, an area is counted as 'forest cover' if it is at least one hectare in extent and has a tree canopy density of at least

  • (a)5 per cent
  • (b)10 per cent
  • (c)40 per cent
  • (d)70 per cent

  Answer(b) 10 per cent — below that the land is classed as scrub; 40 per cent is the boundary of moderately dense forest and 70 per cent that of very dense forest.