Match List-I with List-II and choose the correct answer using the codes given below the lists :
List-I (Coal Resources)
A. Hutar
B. Ib River
C. Tatapani – Ramkola
D. Umaria
List-II (States)
1. Madhya

Question

Match List-I with List-II and choose the correct answer using the codes given below the lists :
List-I (Coal Resources)
A. Hutar
B. Ib River
C. Tatapani – Ramkola
D. Umaria
List-II (States)
1. Madhya Pradesh
2. Chhattisgarh
3. Odisha
4. Jharkhand
Codes :

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — C, A-4, B-3, C-2, D-1. Hutar (A) is a small Gondwana coal basin in the Palamu belt of western Jharkhand, in the North Koel country, grouped with the neighbouring Auranga and Daltonganj fields — so A goes with 4, Jharkhand. Ib River, better known as the Ib Valley coalfield (B), lies in Jharsuguda district of Odisha, in the valley of the Ib, a tributary of the Mahanadi; it holds some of the largest coal reserves in the country (of the order of 22 billion tonnes) and is worked by Mahanadi Coalfields Limited — so B goes with 3, Odisha. Tatapani–Ramkola (C) lies in the Surguja–Surajpur–Balrampur belt of northern Chhattisgarh, part of the Son–Mahanadi coal country that South Eastern Coalfields works — so C goes with 2, Chhattisgarh. Umaria (D) is in Umaria district of Madhya Pradesh, in the same Son–Mahanadi master basin as the Sohagpur and Johilla fields of Shahdol and Anuppur — so D goes with 1, Madhya Pradesh. That single arrangement, A-4, B-3, C-2, D-1, is option (c).

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Only the last pair survives. It sends Hutar to Odisha, the Ib River to Chhattisgarh and Tatapani–Ramkola to Jharkhand. The Ib is a Mahanadi tributary flowing through Jharsuguda in Odisha, which alone rules this arrangement out.  (b) Every pair is wrong. It moves Hutar to Chhattisgarh, the Ib River to Madhya Pradesh, Tatapani–Ramkola to Odisha and Umaria to Jharkhand — a complete reshuffle of the four correct pairings.  (d) This is the near miss and the real trap: it gets Hutar–Jharkhand and Umaria–Madhya Pradesh right but swaps the middle two, putting the Ib River in Chhattisgarh and Tatapani–Ramkola in Odisha. The fix is to anchor the Ib to the Mahanadi drainage of Jharsuguda in Odisha and Tatapani–Ramkola to the Surguja belt of Chhattisgarh.

Concept: Almost all of India's coal is Gondwana coal — Permian-age seams laid down in rift basins that now line four river valleys: the Damodar (Jharia, Bokaro, Karanpura, Raniganj), the Son–Mahanadi (Singrauli, Sohagpur, Umaria, Korba, Tatapani–Ramkola, Talcher, Ib Valley), the Godavari (Singareni) and the Wardha. Learning the coalfields by valley rather than by state is the efficient way to hold them, because the valley fixes the geology while the state boundary is only an administrative line drawn across it.

State PCS 2024 Q33 — Geography PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2024 Q33 — Geography PYQ with Answer