Which one of the following is the narrow belt parallel to the Shiwalik foothills where streams and rivers coming from the mountains deposit heavy materials of rocks and boulders ?
- (a)Tarai
- (b)Bhangar
- (c)Bhabar
- (d)Khadar
Correct — C, Bhabar. The Bhabar is the belt of about 8 to 16 km running parallel to the slopes of the Siwaliks — a gently sloping apron of coarse alluvium at the very foot of the hills. Rivers leaving the mountains lose gradient abruptly here, so the first material they drop is the heaviest: boulders, cobbles, gravel and pebbles. The deposit is so porous that the smaller streams sink into it and vanish from the surface, which is the Bhabar's signature and the reason it is unsuited to cultivation.
- (a)Tarai — The Tarai lies immediately SOUTH of the Bhabar and is its consequence, not its equal. Where the coarse gravel gives way to less permeable silt and clay, the buried streams re-emerge, so the Tarai is a wet, marshy, once heavily forested belt — the opposite of a boulder zone. The paper spells it Tarai; Terai is the commoner spelling.
- (b)Bhangar — Bhangar is the OLDER alluvium of the plain, standing on terraces above the present flood level and often carrying calcareous kankar nodules. It lies well out in the plains, not against the Siwalik foot, and its material is fine, not bouldery.
- (d)Khadar — Khadar is the NEWER alluvium of the active flood plains, renewed by fresh silt almost every year and therefore the most fertile part of the plain. Again it is a fine-textured, low-lying deposit far from the hill front.
Going south from the Himalayan front, the Northern Plains fall into four familiar belts. The Bhabar is the pebble-and-boulder apron at the foot of the Siwaliks, where streams disappear underground. The Tarai below it is the swampy strip where those streams come back to the surface. Further out lies Bhangar, the older alluvium on raised terraces, and lowest of all Khadar, the new alluvium of the active flood plains. The sequence is really a sorting sequence: as the river's energy falls with distance from the hills, it drops progressively finer material.
Two clues in the stem settle it. 'Parallel to the Shiwalik foothills' fixes the belt at the very top of the plain, and 'heavy materials of rocks and boulders' fixes it as a coarse deposit — only the Bhabar satisfies both. The Tarai is the tempting neighbour because it sits in the same foothill zone, but Tarai is defined by water at the surface rather than by boulders. Bhangar and Khadar are decoys from a different axis of the classification altogether: they distinguish old from new alluvium out in the plains, not proximity to the mountains. Note the spelling in the option — the booklet prints Tarai, which is a variant of Terai, not a different feature.
- The Bhabar is a belt of roughly 8 to 16 km lying parallel to the slopes of the Siwaliks.
- Streams flow through its pebbles and disappear from sight, re-emerging further south in the Tarai.
- Groundwater lies deep in the Bhabar but rises to the surface in the Tarai, where coarse alluvium gives way to less permeable silt and clay.
- Bhangar is the older alluvium of higher terraces with kankar nodules; Khadar is the newer alluvium of the flood plains.
- Picking Tarai because it also lies in the foothill zone — Tarai is the wet belt below the Bhabar, not the boulder belt.
- Mixing the Bhabar-Tarai axis, which is about distance from the hills, with the Bhangar-Khadar axis, which is about age of alluvium.
- Being thrown by the spelling 'Tarai' in the option; it is the same feature as Terai.
Asked as a definition-to-name pick like this one, or as a north-to-south sequencing question across the four belts.
With reference to India, which one of the following statements is correct?
- (a) About one-third of the area of the country records more than 750 millimetres of annual rainfall
- (b) The dominant source of irrigation in the country is wells
- (c) Alluvial soil is the predominant type of soil in the northern plains of the country
- (d) The mountain areas account for about thirty percent of the surface area of the country
Answer(c) Alluvial soil is the predominant type of soil in the northern plains of the country
The same plain, viewed as a soil rather than as a set of belts. Bhabar, Tarai, Bhangar and Khadar are the internal divisions of exactly the alluvial cover this UPSC item certifies as dominant there.
According to Koppen's climatic classifications, the Great Northern Plains of India have which one of the following climates ?
- (a) Aw climate
- (b) Cwg climate
- (c) Amw climate
- (d) Dfc climate
Answer(b) Cwg climate
NDA tested the Great Northern Plains in the first session of the same year on climate, and in this session on relief belts — a signal that the region is worth revising as a whole, not one attribute at a time.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following gives the correct order of belts of the Northern Plains from north to south?
- (a)Bhabar, Tarai, Bhangar, Khadar
- (b)Tarai, Bhabar, Khadar, Bhangar
- (c)Khadar, Bhangar, Tarai, Bhabar
- (d)Bhangar, Khadar, Bhabar, Tarai
Answer(a) Bhabar, Tarai, Bhangar, Khadar — coarsest deposit at the hill foot, finest in the active flood plains.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The older alluvium of the Northern Plains, lying on terraces above the flood level and often containing calcareous kankar nodules, is called
- (a)Bhabar
- (b)Bhangar
- (c)Khadar
- (d)Tarai
Answer(b) Bhangar — Khadar is the newer alluvium renewed by fresh silt nearly every year.