UKPSC Prelims 2025 General Studies Paper-I · Question 102 of 149

Correct — C, Only 1 is correct.

The first statement is the settled description of the hill farm economy. Cultivation in Uttarakhand's hill districts is largely rain-fed and spread over small terraced plots, so farm households keep cattle, goats and sheep alongside cropping.

The animals feed back into the farm — manure for the fields, draught power, milk and wool for the house. That is precisely what a supplementary occupation is: an allied activity carried on with the main livelihood, not a substitute for it.

The key marks statement 2 incorrect. One way to read that is that the limb does not merely report a change in hill sheep rearing — it pins the cause on environmental degradation, and that is a stronger claim than the key accepts.

Several drivers are discussed for the change in hill sheep rearing — out-migration from hill villages, grazing restrictions along old transhumance routes, and competition from mill-spun and synthetic yarn.

The closure of the Indo-Tibetan border after 1962 also ended the trans-Himalayan trade leg of Bhotiya transhumance.

With statement 2 marked incorrect, the code collapses to Only 1 is correct. Carry away the reasoning move: a statement can be right about a change and still wrong about its cause.

• (a)
  Both 1 and 2 are correct — This option carries the second statement along with the first. Statement 1 stands on its own, but the key does not accept the second limb, so the pair cannot both be certified.

  Option a belongs to a version of this item in which both limbs are uncontested — say, one saying livestock supplement farm income and another saying the alpine bugyals are used as summer grazing grounds.

• (b)
  Only 2 is correct — This throws away the safest thing in the question. In the hills livestock keeping runs alongside cultivation and returns manure, draught power, milk and wool to the same household, which is exactly the sense in which it supplements agriculture.

  Option b answers a differently built item — one whose first statement overstated the sector by calling animal husbandry the primary occupation of the hill economy in place of cultivation, while its second limb was one the key accepted.

• (d)
  Neither 1 nor 2 is correct — This rejects statement 1 as well, and statement 1 is the part the key upholds. Animal husbandry sitting beside cultivation as an allied occupation is the standard description of Uttarakhand's hill farm economy.

  Option d is the answer to a pair in which both limbs fail — for instance one claiming hill households have given up cultivation in favour of livestock, and another claiming animal husbandry there is organised as large commercial ranches.

A supplementary occupation — also called an allied or subsidiary occupation — is one a household carries on alongside its main livelihood, drawing on the same labour, land and by-products, and adding to income rather than replacing the primary activity.

In hill farming, livestock keeping is the standard example. The animals consume crop residue and graze common land, and return manure, draught power, milk and wool to the same household that works the fields.

• In Uttarakhand's hill districts cultivation is largely rain-fed and spread over small terraced plots, so farm households keep livestock alongside cropping rather than instead of it.
• Livestock return farmyard manure, draught power, milk and wool to the cultivating household, which is what makes animal husbandry an allied rather than a separate occupation.
• Bugyals — the alpine meadows above the treeline in Garhwal and Kumaon — are used as summer grazing grounds by herders.
• Transhumance, the seasonal movement of herders with their flocks between summer and winter pastures, has long been practised in the high valleys of the Uttarakhand Himalaya.
• The Uttarakhand Sheep and Wool Development Board is listed among the institutions of the state Animal Husbandry Department.
• District-wise livestock figures for Uttarakhand come from the Livestock Census; the department publishes the 2019 district-wise data for the state.

• The hazard sits in the second limb's causal word, not its subject: 'sheep rearing has been affected' can read as familiar while the whole limb, cause included, is what you have to certify.
• 'Supplementary' is the technical description of an allied occupation, not a weak word to be corrected upwards into 'principal' or 'main'.
• Rule on each statement separately — judging the pair by its overall plausibility is what makes "Both 1 and 2" look safe.
• Sympathy for an environmental explanation is not evidence for it; the statement asks you to certify a specific cause for a specific change.
• A change in an occupation can have several drivers at once, so naming one of them as the reason is a stronger claim than describing the change.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which of the following best describes the position of animal husbandry in the farm economy of Uttarakhand's hill districts?

  • (a)The principal occupation, with cultivation practised only where irrigation is available
  • (b)A supplementary occupation carried on by farm households alongside cultivation
  • (c)A wholly commercial activity run by companies and kept separate from farming
  • (d)An activity confined to the Bhabar and Tarai belt
  Answerb — livestock keeping is carried on by the same households that cultivate, using crop residue and grazing and returning manure, draught power, milk and wool to the fields.

  Option a inverts the relationship: rain-fed terraced cultivation is the base occupation of the hill districts, not a specialised one. Option c misdescribes the scale, since the activity is organised at household level and tied to the farm. Option d misplaces it geographically, as hill households keep livestock too.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  In the context of Uttarakhand, bugyals are best described as:

  • (a)Terraced fields on the lower slopes sown with rain-fed millets
  • (b)Alpine meadows above the treeline used as summer grazing grounds
  • (c)Riverine grasslands of the Tarai grazed through the winter
  • (d)Clearings in the sal forests of the Shivalik belt
  Answerb — bugyal is the local term for the high meadows lying above the treeline in Garhwal and Kumaon, reached by herders in the summer months.

  Option a describes hill cropland, not pasture. Option c places the feature in the plains belt and reverses the season of use. Option d describes a lowland forest formation rather than a meadow above the treeline.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Consider the following statements and select the correct answer using the codes given below: 1. Transhumance is the seasonal movement of herders with their livestock between summer and winter pastures. 2. In the Uttarakhand Himalaya, meadows above the treeline serve as the summer grazing grounds in such movement.

  • (a)Only 1 is correct
  • (b)Only 2 is correct
  • (c)Both 1 and 2 are correct
  • (d)Neither 1 nor 2 is correct
  Answerc — the first statement is the definition of transhumance, and the second describes where the summer leg of that movement is spent in the Uttarakhand Himalaya.

  Options a and b each discard one limb that holds on its own, and option d discards both. Note that here, unlike an item that attaches a cause to a change, each statement only describes a practice, so both can be certified.