The second largest river basin of India is

Question

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Correct — C, the Godavari Basin. The Godavari drains roughly 3.1 lakh sq km, making its basin the second largest in India after the Ganga basin, and the largest of Peninsular India. The Godavari is also the longest river of the Peninsula (about 1,465 km), rising at Trimbak in the Western Ghats of Maharashtra and emptying into the Bay of Bengal — which is why it is nicknamed the 'Dakshin Ganga' (Ganga of the South).

Why the other options are wrong — (a) The Mahanadi drains a far smaller area (about 1.4 lakh sq km) — a sizeable east-coast basin, but well below the Godavari.  (b) The Narmada is a west-flowing river with a basin of under 1 lakh sq km — smaller than the Godavari and it does not even drain to the east coast.  (d) The Kaveri basin (about 0.8 lakh sq km) is the smallest of the four listed and lies further south; it is not the second largest basin of India.

Concept: A river 'basin' is the total land area a river and its tributaries drain, so basin questions rank rivers by catchment area, not just length. In India the Ganga basin is the largest; the Godavari basin comes second and tops all Peninsular rivers. The Godavari collects big tributaries such as the Pranhita, Indravati and Manjira, giving it a huge catchment across Maharashtra, Telangana, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh.

State PCS 2018 Q31 — Geography PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2018 Q31 — Geography PYQ with Answer