'Gadgil Committee Report' and 'Kasturirangan Committee Report', sometimes seen in the news, are…

Answer: (d) protection of Western Ghats

Both reports are about protecting the ecology of the Western Ghats. The Environment Ministry set up the Gadgil panel (headed by Prof. Madhav Gadgil) to mark ecologically sensitive zones there, and then the Kasturirangan group to review that panel's recommendations.

• ✓ (d) The Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (Gadgil, report of August 2011) and the High Level Working Group on Western Ghats (Kasturirangan, report of April 2013) both dealt with conserving the Ghats and identifying ecologically sensitive areas.
• ✗ (a) Neither body had anything to do with constitutional reform; both were set up by the Ministry of Environment and Forests.
• ✗ (b) The Ganga Action Plan was a river-cleaning programme; these two reports were about a mountain range, not a river.
• ✗ (c) Linking of rivers is a separate water-resources subject; neither the Gadgil nor the Kasturirangan panel was set up for it.

Remember · Gadgil (WGEEP, 2011) and Kasturirangan (HLWG, 2013) are the two Western Ghats reports; the second reviewed the first.

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2016, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). · Report an error