According to the India State of Forest Report 2023, what is the correct…
2025
According to the India State of Forest Report 2023, what is the correct ascending order of the following districts by forest cover area?
- A.
Mandla, Umaria, Chhindwara, Balaghat
- B.
Umaria, Mandla, Chhindwara, Balaghat
- C.
Chhindwara, Balaghat, Umaria, Mandla
- D.
Umaria, Mandla, Balaghat, Chhindwara
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: B
The India State of Forest Report (ISFR), published biennially by the Forest Survey of India (FSI), measures each district's forest cover — all tree canopy of density 10% or more, over a minimum mapped patch size of one hectare, detected via satellite remote sensing — as a direct km² figure for that assessment cycle. This is the only forest-area metric ISFR tabulates district-wise (the report does not separately publish each district's legally recorded forest area), so a question asking for a district's 'forest area' is answered from this forest-cover figure, compared directly in km² rather than as a percentage share of the district's total geographical size.
According to ISFR 2023 (Table 10.14.3, district-wise forest cover for Madhya Pradesh), the forest-cover figure for each of the four named districts is:
District | Forest Cover (ISFR 2023, km²) |
|---|---|
Umaria | 2,239.52 |
Mandla | 3,411.39 |
Chhindwara | 4,578.19 |
Balaghat | 4,921.18 |
Arranging these from smallest to largest (ascending order) gives: Umaria, then Mandla, then Chhindwara, then Balaghat — which is exactly the sequence in the correct option.
As a consistency check: Umaria is one of Madhya Pradesh's smaller districts by total geographical area, so it recording the smallest absolute forest-cover figure among these four is plausible; Balaghat and Chhindwara, by contrast, are large districts within the Satpura–Kanha–Pench forest belt, consistent with their larger absolute forest-cover figures.