Match the following.
River Confluence
a. Prakashe
b. Mudavad
c. Mahuli
d. Tulapur
Rivers
I. Tapi-Panzara
II. Tapi-Gomati
III. Bhima-Indrayani
IV. Krishna-Venna

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — option (2): a–II, b–I, c–IV, d–III, that is, Prakashe (Tapi–Gomati), Mudavad (Tapi–Panzara), Mahuli (Krishna–Venna) and Tulapur (Bhima–Indrayani). Prakasha, a pilgrimage town on the Tapi in Nandurbar district, sits where the Gomai (Gomati) river joins the Tapi — the confluence is marked by the Sangameshwar temple and the town's cluster of temples. Mudavad, a village in Dhule district's Shindkhede tehsil, lies at the confluence of the Tapi and the Panzara, with the historic Kapileshwar temple built there by Ahilyabai Holkar. Mahuli, near Satara, is the well-known Sangam Mahuli where the Venna joins the Krishna — a major Maharashtra pilgrimage spot with the Vishveshwar and Rameshwar temples. Tulapur, near Pune, is where the Bhima and Indrayani meet (a third river, the Bhama, joins nearby too), and is historically significant as the site of Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj's execution. Each of these four is a genuine, distinct river-confluence pilgrimage site in Maharashtra, and the question is testing whether a candidate can keep the four place names and the four river-pairs correctly linked rather than swapped.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) This option swaps Prakashe and Mudavad's river-pairs relative to each other (I and II interchanged) and swaps Mahuli and Tulapur's river-pairs relative to each other (III and IV interchanged), so all four pairings are wrong even though the same four places and four river-pairs both appear.  (c) This option attaches Prakashe to Bhima-Indrayani and Mudavad to Krishna-Venna — both confluences that are geographically nowhere near Nandurbar or Dhule district, where Prakashe and Mudavad actually sit on the Tapi. It also swaps Mahuli and Tulapur's correct pairs between each other.  (d) This option pairs Prakashe with Krishna-Venna and Mudavad with Bhima-Indrayani, again placing two Tapi-basin confluences (Prakashe and Mudavad, both in North Maharashtra) onto river-pairs from the Krishna and Bhima basins further south and east — a full four-way misalignment.

Concept: Maharashtra's rivers each have well-known confluence points (sangams) that have grown into pilgrimage towns, and these four — Prakashe, Mudavad, Mahuli and Tulapur — are among the most commonly cited. Getting the match right depends on knowing which district and which river basin each place actually belongs to, since a wrong pairing usually means crossing two unrelated river basins.

State PCS 2025 Q18 — Geography PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q18 — Geography PYQ with Answer