The Indian Parliament is composed of the Lower House of the People (Lok Sabha) and the Upper House of States (Rajya Sabha). It is the highest legislative body in the country and constitutes a platform for voicing opinions on important matters of the country. The Members belong to different states/union territories or are experts in the fields of scientific, cultural and social issues.

The Members of Parliament belong to different political parties in addition to representing the rich geographical and cultural diversity of the country. Having been duly elected into office on the basis of adult franchise in a democratic order, they represent the common man and the questions or debates in the Parliament therefore highlight the issues that are of direct implications for the common citizen. Taking this into consideration, it is highly relevant to closely monitor the information being exchanged during the Question Hour.

In 1984, ENVIS Centre 07 of the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India, was established in WWF-India to handle environment-related information on the Parliament, NGOs and the media. The Centre has been actively monitoring parliamentary discussions on environmental issues. A substantial amount of environment-related information is exchanged in both the Houses of Parliament in response to queries and call attention notices raised by the Members. Such information relates largely to development activities with environmental implications, other relevant programmes, legislation, policies, etc. This information has been compiled and published by the Centre in separate volumes on a yearly basis. In each volume, questions/answers and statements are presented verbatim from the replies of Ministries on environment matters. The data is procured from the Parliament Secretariat, New Delhi as well as from the website of the Indian Parliament.

Beginning from 2005, the Centre has enhanced the analytical section by adding several new features. One addition pertains to highlighting the participation of each political party through the number of ‘Green’ questions that have been tabled by the Members. Also, the state-wise distribution of questions has been prepared subject-wise to present a broad overview of the environmental problems prevalent in the states and union territories. The section of statistical and graphical representation is an important source of ready assessment of the trend of environment-related information being transacted annually in the Parliament.

Each question/answer and statement has been classified under selected subject heads listed under 18 (Eighteen) categories. The questions put in the Parliament are categorized according to these subjects. The list (showing the coverage areas of the subjects) is given below: