Which of the following statements are correct about Bhabhar Plains ?
(a) The porosity is very high and hence small rivers disappear.
(b) The Bhabhar tract is suitable for crops.
(c) The inhabitants of

Question

Which of the following statements are correct about Bhabhar Plains ?
(a) The porosity is very high and hence small rivers disappear.
(b) The Bhabhar tract is suitable for crops.
(c) The inhabitants of the Bhabhar Plains are cattle-keeping Gujjars.

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — option (3). Three statements are printed and the question is settled by finding the one that fails, because that statement appears in each of the other three rows. Statement (b), that the Bhabhar tract is suitable for crops, is the failure. The Bhabar is the belt of coarse pebbles, gravel and boulders, some eight to sixteen kilometres wide, laid down at the foot of the Shiwaliks by the streams that leave the hills and suddenly lose their carrying power on reaching level ground; the material is so coarse and so porous that water sinks straight through it and the surface will not hold moisture for a crop. The standard description of the tract is that it is unsuited to cultivation and supports only large trees whose roots reach deep enough to find water. Statement (a) states the reason for that unsuitability and is correct: porosity is very high, and the smaller streams sink into the gravel and disappear from the surface altogether, re-emerging as springs and seepages a few kilometres to the south in the Terai. Statement (c) is also correct and follows from the same fact: ground that will not carry a crop can still carry a herd, and the Bhabar tract is described as inhabited by the cattle-keeping Gujjars, whose pastoral livelihood is adapted to it. With (a) and (c) sound and (b) false, the answer is the row that names the first and the third, which is option (3).

Why the other options are wrong — (a) This row pairs the porosity statement, which is correct, with the cultivation statement, which is not. It is chosen by candidates who read the Bhabar as though it were part of the Gangetic plain proper and assume that any alluvial belt must be good farmland. The distinction the question is testing is precisely between the alluvium of the plain and the piedmont deposits at its northern edge: the Khadar and Bhangar of the plain are fine silt and clay laid down by rivers flowing slowly across level country, and they are among the most fertile soils in the world, whereas the Bhabar is the coarse rubble dropped at the very moment the streams leave the hills, sorted so poorly and drained so freely that neither water nor fine soil stays in it.  (b) This row rejects the porosity statement and accepts the cultivation statement, which reverses the truth of both. The porosity of the Bhabar is its defining property and the source of everything else that is said about it: because the belt is built of pebbles and gravel it swallows the streams that enter it, which is why the smaller rivers of the piedmont vanish at its upper edge and reappear lower down where the finer Terai deposits force the water back to the surface. Rejecting that statement leaves the tract without the feature it is known by. A candidate who has learnt the Bhabar and the Terai as a pair — the dry, porous, stream-swallowing belt above and the wet, marshy, spring-fed belt below — will not be tempted by this row.  (d) This row accepts all three statements, and it fails on the same statement as the others: the Bhabar is not suitable for crops. The row is attractive because the first and third statements are both true and a candidate who has verified them may take the third as a formality. It is worth noticing the structure of the question, since it is a common one: the false statement is present in every option except the correct one, so the whole item is decided by identifying that single statement and then choosing the only row that excludes it. Testing the statements before reading the rows, and looking for the statement that recurs rather than the one that is missing, is the quickest route through options of this construction.

Concept: The northern plain is not uniform, and the belts that compose it run parallel to the Himalaya and are distinguished by the coarseness of their material. At the very foot of the Shiwaliks lies the Bhabar, a narrow strip of pebbles and gravel through which the streams sink out of sight; it runs from the Indus to the Tista and is a piedmont deposit rather than a river plain. Below it lies the Terai, a wet and marshy belt where the water that entered the Bhabar returns to the surface, once densely forested and malarial and since reclaimed in large part for cultivation and settlement. South of the Terai the plain proper begins, and it is divided between the Bhangar, the older alluvium standing above the present flood level in terraces and often containing nodules of lime called kankar, and the Khadar, the newer alluvium of the flood plains which is renewed by silt each year and is the more fertile of the two. Further south, where the plain meets the peninsula, are the reh or saline patches and the ravines of the Chambal and Yamuna. Each belt is defined by the energy of the water that made it: coarse rubble where the streams burst out of the hills, fine silt where they wander slowly across level country, and the two kinds of alluvium separated by nothing more complicated than the reach of the annual flood.

State PCS 2022 Q10 — Geography PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2022 Q10 — Geography PYQ with Answer