Observe the following statements :
(a) Mountain located between Pravara and Kukadi river is Harishchandra mountain.
(b) River Manjira flows on Balaghat Plateau.
(c) Satmala and Ajantha mountain ranges

Question

Observe the following statements :
(a) Mountain located between Pravara and Kukadi river is Harishchandra mountain.
(b) River Manjira flows on Balaghat Plateau.
(c) Satmala and Ajantha mountain ranges are between Tapi and Godavari river valleys.

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

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).

Why the other options are wrong — (a) 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.  (b) 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.  (c) 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.

Concept: 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.

State PCS 2022 Q8 — Geography PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2022 Q8 — Geography PYQ with Answer