Make the pairs of chief rivers of their place of origin -
Rivers: (A) Yamuna (B) Krishna (C) Godavari (D) Mahanadi
Place of origin: (1) Sihawa (2) Nasik (3) Mahabaleshwar (4) Yamunotri

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — D, A-(4), B-(3), C-(2), D-(1). The Yamuna rises from the Yamunotri glacier region in Uttarakhand, so A pairs with (4) Yamunotri. The Krishna rises at Mahabaleshwar in the Western Ghats of Maharashtra, so B pairs with (3) Mahabaleshwar. The Godavari rises at Trimbak near Nasik (Maharashtra), so C pairs with (2) Nasik. The Mahanadi rises near Sihawa in the hills of Chhattisgarh, so D pairs with (1) Sihawa. Only option (d) gets all four right.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Yamuna-Yamunotri and Mahanadi-Sihawa are right, but it swaps the two Deccan rivers: it puts Krishna at Nasik and Godavari at Mahabaleshwar. In fact the Krishna rises at Mahabaleshwar and the Godavari near Nasik — reversed here, so the pairing is wrong.  (b) Only Yamuna-Yamunotri is correct. It wrongly sends Krishna to Nasik, Godavari to Sihawa and Mahanadi to Mahabaleshwar — three mismatched pairs.  (c) This is just the trivial 1-2-3-4 straight mapping (Yamuna-Sihawa, Krishna-Nasik, Godavari-Mahabaleshwar, Mahanadi-Yamunotri) and every pair is wrong.

Concept: River source (origin) matching is a staple of Indian geography. Four sources here: Yamunotri (Uttarakhand, Himalaya) is the source of the Yamuna; Mahabaleshwar (Maharashtra, Western Ghats) is the source of the Krishna; Trimbak near Nasik (Maharashtra) is the source of the Godavari — the 'Dakshina Ganga'; and the hills near Sihawa (Dhamtari district, Chhattisgarh) are the source of the Mahanadi.

State PCS 2023 Q96 — Geography PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2023 Q96 — Geography PYQ with Answer