UPSC Prelims 2026 Q32: Madhav National Park & Sakhya Sagar — Explained
With reference to Madhav National Park, which of the following statements is/are correct?
1. It was declared a Tiger Reserve in India in 2025.
2. Sakhya Sagar, which is designated as a Ramsar Site, is situated within this National Park.
3. Its area is shared between Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.
- 1 only
- 1 and 2
- 2 and 3
- 3 only
Answer: (b) 1 and 2
Statement-wise explanation
- 1: correct — Madhav National Park in Shivpuri district, Madhya Pradesh, was notified as a Tiger Reserve on 9 March 2025. It became India's 58th Tiger Reserve and Madhya Pradesh's ninth. The reserve covers about 1,751 sq km: a core of about 375 sq km and a buffer of about 1,276 sq km. It came three months after Ratapani was notified as the 57th Tiger Reserve in December 2024.
- 2: correct — Sakhya Sagar is a reservoir inside Madhav National Park in Shivpuri, Madhya Pradesh. It was designated a Ramsar Site in July 2022. It was one of five new Indian sites added that month; the other four were Karikili, Pallikaranai and Pichavaram in Tamil Nadu and Pala wetland in Mizoram.
- 3: incorrect — Madhav National Park lies entirely within Madhya Pradesh, in Shivpuri district of the Gwalior–Chambal region. Rajasthan comes into the picture only as a link: the park is a possible corridor between Panna Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh and Ranthambore Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan. Sharing a corridor is not the same as sharing territory.
How to eliminate
This question mostly tests whether you know the facts. A few clues still help. Statement 1 is the news peg: UPSC rarely builds a 'current' question around a park that has not just been in the news, and Madhav's tiger reserve notification was widely reported in March 2025. That leaves the 1-only and 1-and-2 options, and rules out the two options that leave statement 1 out. For statement 3, remember that Madhav sits near Shivpuri, a town in Madhya Pradesh, and no Rajasthan district is linked with it. Inter-state protected areas are usually famous for being inter-state, like Manas, which borders Bhutan, so treat a claim of shared territory with doubt. The deciding fact to remember is that Sakhya Sagar, a Ramsar Site since 2022, lies inside Madhav National Park.
Know more
Tiger Reserves are notified by a state government under Section 38V of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, on the advice of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA). Each reserve has an inviolate core (critical tiger habitat) and a surrounding buffer where people and wildlife coexist. Project Tiger began in 1973 with 9 reserves. India had 58 Tiger Reserves after Madhav was added in 2025.
Madhya Pradesh, the 'Tiger State', has the most tiger reserves of any state:
| Tiger Reserve | Note |
|---|---|
| Kanha | One of the first 9 reserves (1973) |
| Pench | Shares its name with Pench in Maharashtra |
| Bandhavgarh | Highest tiger density |
| Panna | Tigers reintroduced after local extinction (2009) |
| Satpura | Satpura hills, Narmadapuram |
| Sanjay-Dubri | Borders Chhattisgarh |
| Veerangana Durgavati | Notified 2023 |
| Ratapani | 57th Tiger Reserve, Dec 2024 |
| Madhav | 58th Tiger Reserve, Mar 2025 |
Madhav's story: Madhav was once a hunting ground of the Scindia rulers of Gwalior and later became a national park. Tigers had disappeared from it. In March 2023 a male tiger from Satpura and a tigress from Bandhavgarh were released there to bring tigers back. This led to the tiger reserve status in 2025.
Ramsar link: A Ramsar Site is a wetland listed as being of international importance under the 1971 Ramsar Convention. Several Indian Ramsar Sites lie inside protected areas, such as Keoladeo, Chilika's Nalabana and Sakhya Sagar in Madhav. Madhya Pradesh's Ramsar Sites include Bhoj Wetland, Sirpur, Yashwant Sagar and Sakhya Sagar.
In the news
Madhav National Park was notified as India's 58th Tiger Reserve on 9 March 2025, about a year before the 2026 Prelims. It completed a tiger reintroduction that began in 2023. UPSC paired it with a static fact, the 2022 Ramsar listing of Sakhya Sagar, and added a geography trap about which state the park lies in.
NCERT Concepts to Revise
- Project Tiger: Statement 1 depends on how Tiger Reserves are created under Project Tiger, with Madhav notified as India's 58th reserve in March 2025.
- National Tiger Conservation Authority: Checking Statement 1's 2025 date means knowing that Tiger Reserves are notified on NTCA advice, as Madhav was after Ratapani.
- Ramsar sites of India: Statement 2 turns on whether Sakhya Sagar, one of five Indian wetlands added in July 2022, really lies within Madhav National Park.
- Ramsar Convention: Statement 2 requires knowing what being 'designated a Ramsar Site' under this wetlands treaty means for a reservoir like Sakhya Sagar.