UKPSC Prelims 2024 Q64: In Uttarakhand State, which district got first place in

Q: What is the answer to UKPSC Prelims 2024 Q64?

C. Correct — C, Udham Singh Nagar. The keyed option is **Udham Singh Nagar**. For 2022-23 it stands first among Uttarakhand's districts in fish production, and that is what the key settles: first place, for that one year. The reason is geography. Udham Singh Nagar is the state's Terai plains district: flat, warm and water-rich, with abundant village society ponds and five reservoirs leased out by the Fisheries Department. Those are the conditions for pond culture of carps. The idea to carry away: **Uttarakhand's fish culture is based in the plains, in ponds and leased reservoirs**. The hills are worked for trout and mahseer, the cold-water fishes the department raises and stocks through its own units.

UKPSC Prelims 2024 General Studies Paper-I · Question 64 of 147

Verified against the official question booklet. Answer as per UKPSC's provisional answer key.

Answers from UKPSC's provisional answer key. The Commission publishes a provisional key for UKPSC Prelims 2024 and invites objections before issuing a final key. Every answer shown here is the Commission's own provisional answer (key PDF), not our derivation. If the final key changes an answer, this page is updated to match.

In Uttarakhand State, which district got first place in fish production in 2022-2023?

(a)Dehradun
(b)Haridwar
(c)Udham Singh Nagar
(d)Tehri Garhwal

Answer

Why

Correct — C, Udham Singh Nagar.

The keyed option is Udham Singh Nagar. For 2022-23 it stands first among Uttarakhand's districts in fish production, and that is what the key settles: first place, for that one year.

The reason is geography. Udham Singh Nagar is the state's Terai plains district: flat, warm and water-rich, with abundant village society ponds and five reservoirs leased out by the Fisheries Department. Those are the conditions for pond culture of carps.

The idea to carry away: Uttarakhand's fish culture is based in the plains, in ponds and leased reservoirs. The hills are worked for trout and mahseer, the cold-water fishes the department raises and stocks through its own units.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Dehradun — Dehradun sits in the Doon valley, and its place in this sector is a departmental carp seed hatchery. Supplying fish seed is a different thing from producing table fish, and the stem asks about production.
Dehradun is the right answer for the interim state capital and the Doon valley, not for the district lead in fish output.
(b)
Haridwar — Haridwar is the other plains district among the options and shares the pond-based carp culture that lifts Udham Singh Nagar, which makes it the strongest alternative here. The stem asks which district came first, and the key gives that to Udham Singh Nagar.
Haridwar is the right answer for Har-ki-Pauri and the Kumbh Mela on the Ganga, not for the 2022-23 fish-production lead.
(d)
Tehri Garhwal — Tehri Garhwal is a hill district. It holds the Tehri dam reservoir, which the Fisheries Department leases out and where cage culture is being developed — a programme taken up from 2016-17 and still being scaled up, rather than the state's established culture base.
Tehri Garhwal is the right answer for the Tehri reservoir on the Bhagirathi, not for the fish-production lead.

Concept

A district-wise production ranking is a snapshot for the year named in the stem, not a permanent fact. Reading it well means asking what physical conditions let one district lead.

For fish in Uttarakhand the decisive condition is warm standing water. Ponds and leased reservoirs in the plains support carp culture at scale; the hill rivers and lakes carry the cold-water fisheries, trout and mahseer.

Uttarakhand is a small fish producer by national standards. The state's own statistical series puts fish production at 7.325 thousand metric tonnes in 2022-23, then 8.91 in 2023-24 and 10.49 in 2024-25 (Statistical Diary 2024-25, Table 9.1, from the Director of Fisheries).

That table is state-level. The district picture behind it rests on where culture happens: the Terai ponds and leased reservoirs of Udham Singh Nagar, which the key marks first for 2022-23, while the hills are worked for trout and mahseer.

Key facts

Udham Singh Nagar led Uttarakhand's districts in fish production in 2022-23.
Udham Singh Nagar, headquartered at Rudrapur, is a Terai plains district carved out of Nainital district in 1995.
The Fisheries Department leases five reservoirs in Udham Singh Nagar and reports village society ponds as abundant there and in Haridwar.
Departmental carp seed hatcheries/farms in Udham Singh Nagar and Dehradun supply seed of six carp varieties; a departmental trout farm is in Chamoli.
Rainbow and brown trout and mahseer are the state's cold-water fishes of commercial importance, promoted in the hills.
The Department manages Nainital's Bhimtal, Sattal and Naukuchiatal lakes and leases out the Tehri reservoir; it has proposed about 248 cages state-wide.
Uttarakhand's fish production was 7.325 thousand metric tonnes in 2022-23, 8.91 in 2023-24 and 10.49 in 2024-25 (Statistical Diary 2024-25, Table 9.1).

Uttarakhand fish production 2022-23: the four options

Udham Singh Nagar — Terai plains→1st in 2022-23; ponds and five leased reservoirs

Haridwar — plains→village society ponds, carp culture

Dehradun — Doon valley→departmental carp seed hatchery

Tehri Garhwal — hills→Tehri reservoir, cage culture being developed

Uttarakhand's culture base is the plains ponds and leased reservoirs, with cold-water fisheries in the hills; the key puts Udham Singh Nagar first for 2022-23.

Study next

Uttarakhand Fisheries Department: leased reservoirs, lake management and the reservoir cage-culture programme taken up from 2016-17Cold-water fisheries of the Himalaya: trout and mahseer, and ICAR's Directorate of Coldwater Fisheries Research at BhimtalReservoirs and wetlands of Udham Singh Nagar, including Nanak SagarDistrict leaders in other primary sectors of Uttarakhand as reported in the state's statistical publications

Common traps

Treating the best-known water body as the biggest producer: the Tehri reservoir is famous, but the state's culture base is the plains ponds and leased reservoirs, and reservoir cage farming has been developed only from 2016-17.
Reading a seed hatchery as a production lead: Dehradun has a departmental carp seed hatchery, and supplying seed is not the same as producing table fish.
Stopping at 'a plains district': Udham Singh Nagar and Haridwar are both plains districts, so it is the stem's 'first place' in 2022-23 that decides between them.
Ignoring the year in the stem: a district rank belongs to the year it was published for, so the figure quoted must be 2022-23.

The item names a sector and a year and asks for the leading district.

Variants swap the sector, ask for the second-placed or lowest district, ask which pair of districts leads, or move from output to infrastructure: where the carp hatcheries or the trout farm sit, and which district holds Bhimtal, Sattal and Naukuchiatal.

Related PYQs

UKPSC_2025_PRE_GSI_Q12025

Same device: a district's rank on a state-wide statistic (least population, third place in population). Differs in indicator and source, Census 2011 rather than a fisheries production series, and is a multi-statement check rather than a single 'which district' pick.

UKPSC_2024_PRE_GSI_Q1142024

Same paper and the same 'which district of Uttarakhand' device, but the field is pilgrimage geography (Purnagiri in Champawat), a fixed location rather than a year-bound production ranking.

MPPSC_2024_PRE_PaperI_Q512024

Same shape: a rank on a production statistic for a named year (wheat among Madhya Pradesh's cereals, 2021-22). Differs in that it ranks a commodity within a state, not a district, and belongs to Madhya Pradesh.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
Which district led Uttarakhand in fish production in 2022-23?
- (a)Nainital
- (b)Pauri Garhwal
- (c)Udham Singh Nagar
- (d)Chamoli
Answerc — Udham Singh Nagar, the Terai plains district around Rudrapur, with village society ponds and five reservoirs leased by the Fisheries Department.
Nainital is a hill-and-lakes district, where the department's water bodies are Bhimtal, Sattal and Naukuchiatal. Pauri Garhwal is a hill district. Chamoli holds the departmental trout farm, a cold-water unit rather than a carp-pond base.
practice — not a real PYQ
Which fish is reared at the Uttarakhand Fisheries Department's cold-water farm in Chamoli district?
- (a)Rohu
- (b)Catla
- (c)Rainbow trout
- (d)Mrigal
Answerc — The Chamoli unit is a departmental trout farm, and trout is the cold-water fish the state promotes in its hills.
Rohu, catla and mrigal are the Indian major carps, warm-water fishes cultured in the ponds of the plains districts, not in a cold-water hill farm.
practice — not a real PYQ
The natural lakes Bhimtal, Sattal and Naukuchiatal, managed by the Uttarakhand Fisheries Department, lie in which district?
- (a)Udham Singh Nagar
- (b)Nainital
- (c)Almora
- (d)Champawat
Answerb — The three lakes belong to the Kumaon lake cluster in Nainital district.
Udham Singh Nagar has leased reservoirs and ponds in the Terai, not these hill lakes. Almora and Champawat are neighbouring hill districts; the named lakes lie in Nainital.
practice — not a real PYQ
In which district of Uttarakhand does the Fisheries Department lease out five reservoirs for fish culture?
- (a)Tehri Garhwal
- (b)Dehradun
- (c)Udham Singh Nagar
- (d)Nainital
Answerc — The department's own account lists five leased reservoirs in Udham Singh Nagar, alongside its abundant village society ponds.
Tehri Garhwal has the one large reservoir behind the Tehri dam, itself leased out. Dehradun is known in this sector for a carp seed hatchery. Nainital's departmental water bodies are the three natural lakes Bhimtal, Sattal and Naukuchiatal.