BPSC 69th CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 99 of 144

Correct — C, Almora. Uttarakhand's northern frontier with Tibet (China) runs along the crest of the Great Himalaya, and only three of the state's thirteen districts actually reach it: Uttarkashi, Chamoli and Pithoragarh. Each of the three can be checked against its own district administration. Uttarkashi's site says the district ‘sprawls in the extreme north-west corner of the state’ and that ‘on its north lie Himachal Pradesh State and the territory of Tibet’. Chamoli is bounded by Tibet on the north — the frontier reached by the Mana and Niti passes, and the stretch in which the disputed Barahoti plain lies. Pithoragarh's site is blunter still: ‘the whole northern and eastern boundaries of Pithoragarh district are international’, and it names Lipulekh, Kungri Bingri, Lampiya Dhura and Belcha as the openings towards Tibet. Almora sits behind all three. Its own administration lists the district's neighbours as ‘Pithoragarh district to the east, Garhwal region to the west, Bageshwar district to the north and Nainital district to the south’ — four Indian neighbours and not one metre of international boundary. Almora is a mid-Himalayan ridge-top district of the Kumaon division whose headquarters town, founded in 1568 by the Chand king Kalyan Chand, sits on a horseshoe-shaped spur at roughly 1,600 m; it has no glacier, no high pass and no border post. So the district in the list that is not on the Tibet boundary is Almora. It is worth being exact about which boundary the stem means, because Uttarakhand has two. The Ministry of Home Affairs' own statement of India's land frontiers gives the boundary with China as "3488 kms running along Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Union Territory of Ladakh", and the boundary with Nepal as "1751 kms running along Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Sikkim". Uttarakhand appears on both lists, which is why a district there can be a frontier district facing one country and interior with respect to the other — Champawat, for instance, is on the Nepal line and nowhere near Tibet. Almora is on neither. What Almora is instead, on its own administration's numbers, is an old, densely settled interior district that has been losing people. Its demography page gives an area of 3,139 sq km of which 1,309 sq km is forest, a population of 622,506 made up of 291,081 men and 331,425 women — a sex ratio of about 1,139 women to 1,000 men — a density of 198 per sq km against the state's 189, and urbanisation of 11.79 per cent against the state's 30.23. On the same page the district's population growth is recorded as negative, at −1.64 per cent, while Uttarakhand's was +18.81. A hill district with more women than men, above-average density and a shrinking population is the signature of generations of male out-migration from long-cultivated mid-mountain country. That is the opposite profile to the thinly peopled, high-altitude, glacier-and-pass tehsils along the Tibet line.

• (a)Uttarkashi — Uttarkashi does lie on the Tibet boundary, so it cannot be the answer to a ‘not situated’ stem. It is Uttarakhand's largest district by area in the extreme north-west, its northern edge is the Tibet frontier, and the Nelong (Jadhang) valley beyond Bhairon Ghati is the old trade corridor through it. Gangotri and the source of the Bhagirathi lie in the same district.
• (b)Chamoli — Chamoli is also a frontier district — bounded by Tibet to the north, with the Mana Pass above Badrinath and the Niti Pass above Joshimath as its historic crossings, and with Mana village on the Indo-Tibet border. The Barahoti pasture, one of the pockets India and China dispute in the middle sector, lies inside Chamoli.
• (d)None of the above — This option would only win if every district named were genuinely on the Tibet boundary, leaving no exception to pick. Two of the three are, but Almora is not, so an exception exists and ‘None of the above’ fails. On a negatively worded stem this option is the standard escape hatch for a candidate who is unsure, and it is exactly the wrong instinct here.

Uttarakhand covers 53,483 sq km, about 1.6 per cent of India's area, and is divided into two commissionerates — Garhwal and Kumaon — holding thirteen districts between them. Two of its four boundaries are international: Tibet (China) to the north and Nepal to the east across the Kali or Sharda river, with Himachal Pradesh to the west and Uttar Pradesh to the south. Because the Chinese boundary follows the high Himalayan watershed and the Nepal boundary follows a river, they touch quite different sets of districts. Uttarkashi, Chamoli and Pithoragarh reach the Tibet line; Pithoragarh and Champawat face Nepal across the Kali. Pithoragarh is therefore the only district of the state with two international neighbours, which is why the Kalapani–Lipulekh tract at the India–Nepal–China trijunction sits inside it. The remaining districts, Almora among them, are wholly interior.

Do not try to recall thirteen district shapes. Anchor instead on one rule: the India–Tibet boundary here follows the crest of the Great Himalaya, so a district touches it only if it contains high peaks, glaciers and a pass. Uttarkashi has Gangotri; Chamoli has Nanda Devi, Badrinath, Mana and Niti; Pithoragarh has the Johar and Darma valleys and Lipulekh. Almora has none of these — its highest ground is modest ridge country and its four neighbours are all Indian districts. That single fact, that Almora's neighbour list contains no foreign territory, decides the question. There is a physical test standing behind the administrative one, and it is worth carrying because it works on any state. The Indo-Tibetan Border Police, raised on 24 October 1962, guards the whole India–China line — 3,488 km "from the Karakoram Pass in Ladakh to Jachep La in Arunachal Pradesh" on the force's own description — and says most of its border out-posts stand between 9,000 and 18,800 feet, where winter temperatures fall to −45 °C. That is the altitude band a district must contain before it can be on this frontier. Almora's headquarters town sits at roughly 1,600 m, the district holds no glaciated country at all, and it is therefore below even the floor of that range. The trap is historical rather than geographical. Almora is the most famous name in Kumaon, and until 24 February 1960 Pithoragarh was part of Almora district, so the Bhotia trade routes to Tibet through Johar and Darma were once administered from Almora. Older gazetteers and any material copied from them describe ‘Almora district’ as reaching the Tibetan trade marts, and that memory is what makes option (c) feel unsafe.

• Uttarakhand: 53,483 sq km, about 1.6 per cent of India's area; 13 districts in two divisions, Garhwal and Kumaon; international boundaries with Tibet (China) on the north and Nepal on the east
• Districts on the India–Tibet boundary: Uttarkashi, Chamoli and Pithoragarh only — Pithoragarh is the sole district touching both Tibet and Nepal
• Almora district administration's own boundary statement: ‘Pithoragarh district to the east, Garhwal region to the west, Bageshwar district to the north and Nainital district to the south’ — no international boundary
• Pithoragarh district was carved out of Almora on 24 February 1960 and Bageshwar district on 15 September 1997; before 1960 the undivided Almora district did reach the Tibet frontier
• Passes towards Tibet: Mana and Niti in Chamoli; Lipulekh, Kungri Bingri, Lampiya Dhura and Belcha in Pithoragarh (named by the district administration); the Nelong–Jadhang corridor in Uttarkashi
• Almora town was founded in 1568 by the Chand ruler Kalyan Chand and was then called Rajapur; it stands on a horseshoe-shaped ridge whose two arms are called Talifat and Selifat
• The Indo-Tibetan Border Police was raised on 24 October 1962 and guards the 3,488 km India–China border "from the Karakoram Pass in Ladakh to Jachep La in Arunachal Pradesh"; most of its border out-posts stand between 9,000 and 18,800 feet, with winter temperatures down to −45 °C
• Ministry of Home Affairs, verbatim: the India–China boundary is "3488 kms running along Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Union Territory of Ladakh" and the India–Nepal boundary "1751 kms running along Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and Sikkim" — Uttarakhand and Sikkim are the two states on BOTH lists, which is the pairing worth remembering, and Bihar appears on the Nepal list only
• Almora district administration's demography page: area 3,139 sq km with 1,309 sq km under forest, population 622,506 (291,081 men and 331,425 women, a sex ratio near 1,139 women per 1,000 men), density 198 per sq km against the state's 189, urbanisation 11.79% against 30.23%, literacy 80.47%, and negative population growth recorded at −1.64% while the state grew 18.81%

• Treating ‘northern’ as ‘bordering’. Bageshwar lies north of Almora and is still completely interior; a district can be the northernmost of its neighbourhood without touching any frontier.
• Carrying a pre-1960 map. Pithoragarh separated from Almora only on 24 February 1960, so old sources describing Almora district on the Tibet trade routes are describing a district that no longer exists in that form.
• Choosing ‘None of the above’ on a negative stem. It is correct only when the exception the stem asks for does not exist, which is rarer than candidates assume.

BPSC asks boundary questions as one-line recall with a negative twist — ‘which district is not situated along’, ‘which is not correctly matched’ — and is willing to leave Bihar for a state elsewhere in India, as here. UPSC prefers the same idea as a multi-statement or pair-matching item, giving three states with their claimed international neighbours and asking how many pairs hold, so the answer turns on the weakest pair rather than on one recalled name.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which district of Uttarakhand shares an international boundary with both China (Tibet) and Nepal?

  • (a)Uttarkashi
  • (b)Chamoli
  • (c)Pithoragarh
  • (d)Champawat

  Answer(c) Pithoragarh — its northern boundary faces Tibet and its eastern boundary follows the Kali river against Nepal; the Kalapani–Lipulekh trijunction area lies inside it.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Mana and Niti passes, leading towards Tibet, lie in which district of Uttarakhand?

  • (a)Uttarkashi
  • (b)Chamoli
  • (c)Pithoragarh
  • (d)Bageshwar

  Answer(b) Chamoli — Mana Pass lies above Badrinath and Niti Pass above Joshimath, both on the district's northern frontier with Tibet.