Match List-I with List-II and choose the correct answer using the codes given below the lists :
List-I (Place)
A. Devprayag
B. Rudraprayag
C. Karnaprayag
D. Tehri
List-II (Confluencing Rivers)
1. Alak

Question

Match List-I with List-II and choose the correct answer using the codes given below the lists :
List-I (Place)
A. Devprayag
B. Rudraprayag
C. Karnaprayag
D. Tehri
List-II (Confluencing Rivers)
1. Alaknanda and Pindar
2. Alaknanda and Bhagirathi
3. Bhagirathi and Bhilangna
4. Alaknanda and Mandakini
Codes :

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — D, A-2, B-4, C-1, D-3. Take the four places one at a time. Devprayag, in Tehri Garhwal district, is where the Alaknanda meets the Bhagirathi, and it is the single most consequential confluence in the Himalaya because below this point the united stream stops being two rivers and becomes the Ganga — so A pairs with 2. Rudraprayag, which gives its district its name, is the meeting of the Alaknanda with the Mandakini, the river that comes down from Kedarnath, so B pairs with 4. Karnaprayag, in Chamoli district, is where the Pindar, fed by the Pindari glacier in Kumaon, joins the Alaknanda, so C pairs with 1. Tehri is not a prayag at all — it is the town, now submerged as Old Tehri beneath the Tehri reservoir, that stood at the junction of the Bhagirathi with the Bhilangana, the stream that rises at the Khatling glacier; so D pairs with 3. Reading the codes off, A-2, B-4, C-1, D-3 is option (d). Notice the structural clue the examiner has left: three of the four places are on the Alaknanda and only Tehri is on the Bhagirathi, so the moment you fix Tehri to the Bhilangana pair you have eliminated every option except (b) and (d), and Devprayag then decides between them.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) Gets Tehri right but rotates the three prayags by one step. It puts the Mandakini at Devprayag (that is Rudraprayag), the Pindar at Rudraprayag (that is Karnaprayag) and the Bhagirathi at Karnaprayag (that is Devprayag). This is the classic error of a candidate who remembers the four tributary names and the four places but not which goes with which, and it is why the Panch Prayag should be learned as an ordered upstream-to-downstream chain rather than as a loose list.  (b) Right about Devprayag and Karnaprayag but swaps the last two. It sends the Bhagirathi–Bhilangana confluence to Rudraprayag and the Alaknanda–Mandakini confluence to Tehri — geographically impossible, because the Bhilangana joins the Bhagirathi in the Tehri Garhwal valley while the Mandakini comes down the Kedarnath valley to meet the Alaknanda at Rudraprayag. The two river systems do not touch until Devprayag, far downstream of both.  (c) Every one of its four pairs is wrong. Devprayag is given the Mandakini, Rudraprayag the Pindar, Karnaprayag the Bhilangana and Tehri the Alaknanda–Bhagirathi confluence, which is Devprayag's defining feature. The last of these is the most misleading half-memory in the set: candidates who recall that the Ganga is formed by the union of the Bhagirathi and the Alaknanda, and separately that the Tehri dam is on the Bhagirathi, sometimes fuse the two into a belief that the union happens at Tehri. It happens 80-odd kilometres downstream, at Devprayag.

Concept: The Ganga is assembled in the Garhwal Himalaya out of two headstreams and a series of tributaries that join at named confluences called prayags. The Bhagirathi rises at Gaumukh, the snout of the Gangotri glacier, and is joined at Old Tehri by the Bhilangana from the Khatling glacier. The Alaknanda rises at the foot of the Satopanth glacier and collects four tributaries in turn on its 229-kilometre course. Those four meetings, plus its final union with the Bhagirathi, are the Panch Prayag — the five sacred confluences — and each has a temple town at it. Below the fifth, at Devprayag, the river is the Ganga.

State PCS 2024 Q74 — Geography PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2024 Q74 — Geography PYQ with Answer