Match List-I with List-II and select the correct answer using the code given below the Lists: List-I (Railway Zone) A. East Central B. North Eastern C. Northeast Frontier D. North Western List-II (Headquarters) 1. Gorakhpur 2. Jaipur 3. Hajipur 4. Maligaon Code:
- (a)A-3, B-4, C-1, D-2
- (b)A-3, B-1, C-4, D-2
- (c)A-2, B-1, C-4, D-3
- (d)A-2, B-4, C-1, D-3
Correct — B, A-3, B-1, C-4, D-2. East Central Railway has its headquarters at Hajipur in Bihar, which gives A-3. North Eastern Railway is headquartered at Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh, which gives B-1. Northeast Frontier Railway, a completely different zone despite the similar name, is headquartered at Maligaon in Guwahati, Assam, which gives C-4. North Western Railway is headquartered at Jaipur in Rajasthan, which gives D-2. Only option (b) makes all four pairings correctly.
- (a)A-3, B-4, C-1, D-2 — It gets East Central at Hajipur and North Western at Jaipur right, but swaps the two similar-sounding zones — it puts North Eastern at Maligaon and Northeast Frontier at Gorakhpur, which is exactly the reverse of the truth.
- (c)A-2, B-1, C-4, D-3 — It handles the North Eastern and Northeast Frontier pair correctly but swaps the other two — pairing East Central with Jaipur and North Western with Hajipur. East Central is the Bihar zone and North Western the Rajasthan zone.
- (d)A-2, B-4, C-1, D-3 — It is wrong on all four pairings, swapping both the Hajipur and Jaipur pair and the Gorakhpur and Maligaon pair.
Indian Railways is administered through zones, each headed by a General Manager and subdivided into divisions. Several of the present zones were carved out of older ones in the early 2000s, which is why the map now contains names that sound alike, such as North Eastern and Northeast Frontier, or East Central and East Coast. Headquarters are placed at operationally central junction towns rather than at the biggest city in the region.
The item is decided by a single deliberately confusable pair. North Eastern Railway, headquartered at Gorakhpur, serves eastern Uttar Pradesh and northern Bihar and has nothing to do with the North-East; Northeast Frontier Railway, headquartered at Maligaon in Guwahati, is the zone that actually serves the North-Eastern states. Settle that pair first and the remaining two sort themselves by geography — East Central is the Bihar zone at Hajipur, North Western the Rajasthan zone at Jaipur. As of the September 2022 exam all four of these headquarters were as listed, and none of them has changed since, although the zone map itself has continued to grow with the newer South Coast Railway zone.
- East Central Railway is headquartered at Hajipur in Bihar.
- North Eastern Railway is headquartered at Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh.
- Northeast Frontier Railway is headquartered at Maligaon in Guwahati, Assam.
- North Western Railway is headquartered at Jaipur in Rajasthan.
The two highlighted zones are the confusable pair — North Eastern serves eastern UP from Gorakhpur, Northeast Frontier serves the North-East from Maligaon. Together they give A-3, B-1, C-4, D-2.
- Treating North Eastern Railway and Northeast Frontier Railway as the same zone.
- Assuming a zone's headquarters must be the largest city in its region — Maligaon, Hajipur and Gorakhpur are all junction towns, not metros.
A four-pair match list in which one deliberately confusable pair decides the whole item, or a single-line 'headquarters of zone X' question.
Which one of the following pairs is not correctly matched? Railway Zone — Headquarters
- (a) North Eastern Railway — Gorakhpur
- (b) South Eastern Railway — Bhubaneswar
- (c) Eastern Railway — Kolkata
- (d) South East Central Railway — Bilaspur
Answer(b) South Eastern Railway — Bhubaneswar
The same zone-and-headquarters table, asked as a mismatch. It also confirms North Eastern Railway at Gorakhpur, which is the pairing that decides the NDA item.
The Headquarters of South-Eastern Railway is located at
- (a) Bilaspur.
- (b) Secunderabad.
- (c) Kolkata.
- (d) Bhubaneswar.
Answer(c) Kolkata.
Same table, single-pair format. NDA has asked railway zone headquarters repeatedly, so the full zone list is worth memorising rather than the one pair a paper happens to test.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The headquarters of the Northeast Frontier Railway is located at
- (a)Gorakhpur
- (b)Hajipur
- (c)Maligaon
- (d)Jaipur
Answer(c) Maligaon — in Guwahati, Assam; Gorakhpur is the North Eastern Railway headquarters.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which railway zone has its headquarters at Hajipur?
- (a)East Coast Railway
- (b)East Central Railway
- (c)Eastern Railway
- (d)North Central Railway
Answer(b) East Central Railway — East Coast Railway is headquartered at Bhubaneswar and Eastern Railway at Kolkata.