In which state of India is Kund or Tanka used for water harvesting?

Correct — C. Kunds and tankas are the traditional rainwater harvesting structures of Rajasthan, above all its arid west — Bikaner, Phalodi and Barmer.

A tanka is a covered underground tank in the house courtyard, fed by rain running off the sloping rooftop through pipes.

A kund is a similar covered pit with its own saucer-shaped artificial catchment.

The stored rain, called palar pani locally, is the household's drinking water. Keeping it covered and underground is what keeps it usable through the summer.

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Uttar Pradesh — Uttar Pradesh sits on the Ganga plain — perennial rivers, canals and shallow groundwater — so it never needed underground cisterns to hold a year's drinking water.
• (b)
  Punjab — Punjab draws on the canal network of the Satluj, Beas and Ravi and on tube wells. Its water problem is falling groundwater, not the absence of surface supply.
• (d)
  Andhra Pradesh — Andhra Pradesh has a long tank-irrigation tradition, but those are open community tanks for fields, not the covered underground kund or tanka for drinking water.

Traditional water harvesting in India is regionally specific, because the shortage it answers is regional.

In the arid west, where rain is scarce and evaporation fierce, water is stored underground and covered — the kunds and tankas of Rajasthan.

Elsewhere the answer differs. Guls and kuls divert hill streams to fields in the western Himalaya, and Meghalaya uses bamboo drip irrigation.

Rajasthan also has khadins and johads, but those store water for agriculture, not for drinking.

Key facts

• Tankas are covered underground tanks that store drinking water in western Rajasthan, notably in Bikaner, Phalodi and Barmer.
• Harvested rainwater in the region is called palar pani and is regarded as the purest drinking water available.
• Khadins and johads are Rajasthan's agricultural water structures, not drinking-water ones.
• Guls and kuls are the hill-stream diversion channels of the western Himalaya.

Common traps

• Confusing kund and tanka — drinking water, covered, underground — with khadin and johad, which are open and agricultural.
• Choosing a southern state because of its temple-tank tradition — those are open surface tanks and serve irrigation.

No directly related past PYQ was found.