Which state in India was the most transformed by the Green Revolution?

Correct — C. The Green Revolution package — high-yielding variety seeds, chemical fertiliser and assured irrigation — needed water on demand, and Punjab already had the canals and tubewells to supply it.

Wheat was the crop the first phase transformed, and Punjab is a wheat state. Its yields and its marketed surplus rose fastest, and it became a leading contributor to the central foodgrain pool.

That combination of existing irrigation and a wheat economy is why option (c) is the state named.

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Kerala — Kerala's agriculture is dominated by plantation crops — rubber, tea, coffee, spices, coconut — which the wheat-and-rice seed package did not touch.
• (b)
  Maharashtra — Much of Maharashtra is rain-fed Deccan plateau with thin irrigation cover, so the seed-fertiliser-water package could not be applied there at scale.
• (d)
  West Bengal — West Bengal is a rice state, and the first and largest gains of the Green Revolution were in wheat. Its rice-led growth came later and was never the emblem of the period.

The Green Revolution is the shift, from the mid-1960s, to a package of inputs: semi-dwarf high-yielding wheat, heavy fertiliser use, pesticides and assured irrigation. It raised output per hectare rather than area sown.

The imported Mexican wheat varieties were adapted to Indian conditions under M. S. Swaminathan at IARI.

Its geography was narrow — Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh — because only there did irrigation, credit and marketing already exist. That narrowness is itself examinable, since the region that gained most also carries the costs.

Key facts

• The Green Revolution began in India in the mid-1960s with semi-dwarf high-yielding wheat varieties.
• Its gains were concentrated in Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, where assured irrigation already existed.
• Wheat, not rice, was the crop transformed in the first phase.
• M. S. Swaminathan led the adaptation of the imported wheat varieties to Indian conditions.

Common traps

• Choosing a state you associate with agriculture in general rather than with irrigated wheat
• Treating the Green Revolution as national in reach when it was regional

No directly related past PYQ was found.