MPSC 2022 Prelims Paper-I · Question 8 of 100

Correct — option (4). Only three statements are printed, so the question is decided by testing each against the physiography of the Deccan plateau in Maharashtra, and all three survive. Statement (a) places the Harishchandra range between the Pravara and the Kukadi, and that is where it lies: the range runs eastwards from the crest of the Sahyadri into Ahmednagar district, with the Pravara draining the country to its north towards the Godavari and the Kukadi draining the country to its south towards the Bhima, so the range is the divide between those two basins and Harishchandragad stands on it. Statement (b) places the Manjra on the Balaghat plateau, and that is correct: the Manjra rises in the Balaghat range, the eastward continuation of the same upland, and flows across the Balaghat plateau through Beed, Latur and Dharashiv before passing into Karnataka and Telangana to join the Godavari, gathering the Terna, Manar and Lendi on the way. Statement (c) places the Satmala and Ajanta ranges between the valleys of the Tapi and the Godavari, and that too is right: the Satmala hills run east from the Sahyadri in Nashik district and continue as the Ajanta range across Aurangabad and Jalgaon, carrying the watershed that separates the north-flowing drainage of the Tapi from the east-flowing drainage of the Godavari, and the Ajanta caves are cut into the northern face of that range. Since no statement fails, the row that accepts all three is the answer, and that is option (4).

• (1)Statements (a) and (b) are correct — This row accepts the Harishchandra and Manjra statements and silently drops the third, which is the one about the Satmala and Ajanta ranges — and that statement is sound. The Satmala and Ajanta hills are the northernmost of the east-running spurs that leave the Sahyadri and cross the plateau, and their function in the drainage of the state is to separate the Tapi, which flows west to the Arabian Sea through Khandesh, from the Godavari, which rises at Trimbakeshwar and flows east across the whole peninsula. A candidate hesitates here because the two names are more often met in connection with the Ajanta caves than with the watershed, and a range remembered as a cultural site is not always remembered as a landform. The remedy is to hold each of the state's transverse ranges with the two river basins it divides.
• (2)Statements (b) and (c) are correct — This row accepts the Manjra and the Satmala-Ajanta statements and rejects the first, which places the Harishchandra range between the Pravara and the Kukadi. That statement is correct, and the doubt about it usually comes from the printing rather than from the geography: the English sentence reads Mountain located between Pravara and Kukadi river is Harishchandra mountain, using the singular river for two rivers and mountain where range would be expected, and a candidate who reads a clumsy sentence as a wrong one loses the mark. The geography behind it is straightforward — the Pravara flows east to the Godavari on the northern side, the Kukadi flows east to the Bhima system on the southern side, and the Harishchandra range holds the ground between them, carrying Harishchandragad on its crest.
• (3)Statements (a) and (c) are correct — This row accepts the first and third statements and rejects the second, which puts the Manjra on the Balaghat plateau. The rejection is usually a matter of unfamiliarity: the Manjra is a Marathwada river that flows out of the state and joins the Godavari well beyond its border, so it is less often drawn on a mental map than the Godavari, Bhima or Krishna. It rises in the Balaghat range in Beed district and its whole upper course lies on the Balaghat plateau, the dry upland of Marathwada that the range gives its name to; the Terna, Manar and Lendi join it there. Its importance to the state is practical as well as physical, since the Manjra basin is among the most drought-prone tracts of Marathwada and the river carries several irrigation projects on its course.

Maharashtra divides into three physiographic units and the plateau, which is the largest, has an internal structure that this question is built on. West of the Sahyadri lies the Konkan, a narrow, dissected coastal lowland between the escarpment and the sea. The Sahyadri or Western Ghats forms the western edge of the plateau as a continuous scarp, rising to Kalsubai at about 1,646 metres, the highest point in the state, and it is the divide between the short, swift west-flowing rivers of the Konkan and the long east-flowing rivers of the plateau. East of the crest the Deccan plateau slopes gently eastwards, and it is compartmented by a series of ranges that leave the Sahyadri at right angles and run east across it. From north to south these are the Satmala and Ajanta ranges, which separate the Tapi basin from the Godavari basin; the Harishchandra and Balaghat ranges, which separate the Godavari basin from the Bhima; and the Mahadeo or Shambhu Mahadeo range, which separates the Bhima from the Krishna. North of the Tapi valley the Satpuda range, with the Toranmal plateau, forms the state's northern boundary hills. Each of these ranges is at once a watershed and the boundary of a cultural region, so the same lines mark off Khandesh, Desh, Marathwada and Vidarbha as mark off the river basins.

The physiography of Maharashtra is the single most reliably examined block in the MPSC geography section, because it is state-specific, finite and easy to test in one line. The Commission returns again and again to the same relations: which range lies between which two rivers, which river drains which plateau, which range separates which basins. That is why the material should be learnt as relations rather than as names — a range remembered only as a name cannot answer a question about what it divides. This item also shows how the paper's printing can generate a false doubt. Statement (a) is written in broken English, with a singular river governing two river names, and candidates regularly treat a badly written statement as a false one. The two judgments are independent: the question is whether the geography is right, not whether the sentence is well made. Finally, the question prints only three statements where the eye expects four, and this paper does that fourteen times; the option rows are built around three items, and a candidate who half-remembers a fourth statement will not find a row that fits.

• The Harishchandra range runs east from the Sahyadri into Ahmednagar district between the Pravara to its north and the Kukadi to its south, and forms the divide between the Godavari and Bhima basins.
• The Manjra rises in the Balaghat range and drains the Balaghat plateau of Marathwada through Beed, Latur and Dharashiv, receiving the Terna, Manar and Lendi before joining the Godavari beyond the state.
• The Satmala and Ajanta ranges run east from the Sahyadri across Nashik, Aurangabad and Jalgaon and carry the watershed between the Tapi basin to the north and the Godavari basin to the south.
• The transverse ranges of the Maharashtra plateau, from north to south, are the Satmala-Ajanta, the Harishchandra-Balaghat and the Mahadeo or Shambhu Mahadeo, each separating one river basin from the next.
• Kalsubai, in the Sahyadri in Ahmednagar district, at about 1,646 metres, is the highest point in Maharashtra, and the Sahyadri divides the west-flowing Konkan rivers from the east-flowing plateau rivers.

• Treating a badly written statement as a false one, when the grammar of a sentence and the truth of the geography in it are independent questions
• Remembering a range as the site of a monument rather than as a watershed, which is how the Satmala and Ajanta statement is usually doubted
• Expecting four statements when only three are printed, and hunting for a row that accounts for a statement the paper never made
• Confusing the Manjra, a Marathwada tributary of the Godavari, with the Manjara or with the Purna, and so misplacing it on the plateau

Maharashtra physiography appears in MPSC papers as statement verification of this kind, as matching items joining ranges to the basins they divide or rivers to the plateaus they drain, and as single-line questions on the highest peak, the longest river or the district in which a range lies. The Commission's favourite relation is the range-between-two-rivers formula used in statement (a) here, and it recurs with the Mahadeo range between the Bhima and the Krishna and the Satmala between the Tapi and the Godavari. Because the material is finite, the most efficient preparation is a sketch map of the state drawn from memory with the Sahyadri, the three transverse ranges and the four main river basins marked, checked against an atlas until the relations are automatic.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Satmala and Ajanta ranges of Maharashtra form the watershed between which two river basins ?

  • (a)The Godavari and the Bhima
  • (b)The Tapi and the Godavari
  • (c)The Bhima and the Krishna
  • (d)The Krishna and the Kaveri

  Answer(b) The Tapi and the Godavari — these are the northernmost of the ranges that run east from the Sahyadri, and they separate the north-flowing drainage of the Tapi from the east-flowing drainage of the Godavari. The Harishchandra and Balaghat ranges divide the Godavari from the Bhima, and the Mahadeo range divides the Bhima from the Krishna, so the three ranges are learnt as a sequence from north to south.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Manjra river, which drains the Balaghat plateau of Marathwada, is a tributary of which river ?

  • (a)The Bhima
  • (b)The Tapi
  • (c)The Godavari
  • (d)The Krishna

  Answer(c) The Godavari — the Manjra rises in the Balaghat range, crosses the plateau through Beed, Latur and Dharashiv gathering the Terna, Manar and Lendi, and joins the Godavari after passing beyond the state. Its basin is among the most drought-prone parts of Marathwada, which is why the river carries a number of irrigation projects along its course.