‘Project Tiger’ was started in India in

India's environmental-governance history unfolds in a fixed sequence: an enabling law first creates the legal framework, a dedicated conservation scheme is then launched under that framework, and only later is a full administrative ministry carved out to run it. Telling apart the law that permitted a scheme, the scheme itself, and the ministry that eventually administered it is exactly what a question like this is testing.

The Wildlife (Protection) Act, passed by Parliament in 1972, gave the Government of India the legal tools -- protected-area categories, hunting bans, and offence provisions -- needed to run dedicated conservation schemes. Acting on the alarmingly low tiger numbers reported by the tiger census of that period, the government used this new framework to formally launch Project Tiger on 1 April 1973 at Jim Corbett National Park in Uttarakhand, ring-fencing nine tiger reserves at the outset; it remains one of the world's largest single-species conservation efforts.

The remaining years each belong to a different environmental milestone, not to this project's own launch: 1981 is when the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act was enacted to tackle industrial air pollution, and 1985 is when the Ministry of Environment and Forests was carved out as a separate central ministry, an administrative step distinct from the scheme's own start. Matching each option to its actual milestone leaves only 1973 tied to Project Tiger's launch.