Which of the following are the key features of ‘National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA)’? 1. River basin is the unit of planning and management. 2. It spearheads the river conservation efforts at the national level. 3. One of the Chief Ministers of the States through which the Ganga flows becomes the Chairman of NGRBA on rotation basis. Select the correct answer using the code given below.

The correct answer is A) 1 and 2 only. NGRBA was constituted in 2009 under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, to ensure effective abatement of pollution and conservation of the Ganga. It was later replaced by the National Ganga Council in 2016, so the body no longer exists in that form.

• Statement 1 is correct. NGRBA was designed to treat the river basin as the unit of planning and management, so it worked across the whole basin rather than state by state.
• Statement 2 is correct. It was the apex body at the national level for Ganga conservation, and the National Mission for Clean Ganga functioned under its oversight.
• Statement 3 is wrong. The Prime Minister chaired NGRBA. Chief Ministers of Ganga-basin states were members, not chairpersons on a rotation basis.

The core concept is basin-based governance under a central statute, which links to Mains questions on river federalism and the limits of centre-state coordination in environmental governance.

Trap: Aspirants often borrow the rotating-chair idea from inter-state or zonal councils and accept statement 3 without checking who chairs the body.