Who of the following inaugurated SAFAR (System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting) in July 2018?

The correct option is C) Dr. Harshvardhan. He was the Union Minister for Science and Technology and Earth Sciences, and the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) runs SAFAR, which is implemented through IITM Pune. Ministers of the concerned ministry typically inaugurate such city-level air quality and forecasting facilities, so the question tests whether you know which ministry owns the programme.

• A) Ravishankar Prasad was the Minister of Electronics and IT and Law and Justice. He had no role in MoES or SAFAR.
• B) Piyush Goyal was the Minister of Railways (with additional charge of Coal). He is a common distractor because of his later prominence, but he was not connected to atmospheric monitoring.
• D) None of the above is wrong because option C is correct.

The core concept is institutional mapping: SAFAR is an MoES system for real-time air quality monitoring and weather forecasting in cities, and it links to Mains GS-III on environment and pollution governance. Verify the exact event details against a reliable news archive, since I am working from memory of the 2018 event.

Trap: Aspirants pick a minister they recall from pollution-related news rather than the ministry that actually owns the scheme.