Hi Naval,
I see your point, this is a bit of a tricky question.
From the passage, we see that one method for removing Cr(VI) which is toxic is to convert it to a non-toxic oxidation state that is more easily precipitated by a metal hydroxide. This non-toxic oxidation state can be inferred to be Cr(III).
Now, this gets a bit tricky because you might think adding NaOH would precipitate the Cr(III), facilitating the removal of Cr, which is reasonable based on figure 1.
However, the question specifically asks you only to consider reactions 1 and 2, which show the conversion of Cr(VI) to Cr(III) under acidic conditions. For this type of question, you notice that you need a lot of acid to convert toxic Cr(VI) to Cr(III), so based on reactions 1 and 2 alone, it makes most sense to use more HCl as it it is acidic but does not oxidize Cr3+ back.
I hope this helps!