Which of the following is the correct order of rivers from west to east in Uttarakhand?
- (a)Yamuna, Bhillangana, Alaknanda, Gori
- (b)Gori, Alaknanda, Bhillangana, Yamuna
- (c)Alaknanda, Bhillangana, Yamuna, Gori
- (d)Bhillangana, Yamuna, Gori, Alaknanda
Correct — A, Yamuna, Bhillangana, Alaknanda, Gori.
Read the four names as four basins and walk across the state. The Yamuna rises at Yamunotri in Uttarkashi district, on Uttarakhand's western flank. The Bhillangana comes off the Khatling glacier and meets the Bhagirathi at Old Tehri, one belt further east.
The Alaknanda drains Chamoli and Rudraprayag, east of the Bhagirathi, and joins it at Devprayag. The Gori Ganga rises at the Milam glacier in Pithoragarh and feeds the Kali along the Nepal border — the state's eastern edge.
That walk gives Yamuna, Bhillangana, Alaknanda, Gori. The habit worth carrying away is to anchor each river to a district and then order the districts, instead of ordering by size or by how famous the name is.
- (b)Gori, Alaknanda, Bhillangana, Yamuna — This is the keyed sequence read backwards. Gori first and Yamuna last makes it the correct east-to-west order of the same four rivers.
The relative positions are right; only the direction is wrong. Had the stem asked for east to west, this option would carry the mark.
- (c)Alaknanda, Bhillangana, Yamuna, Gori — Its last term is placed well — the Gori Ganga, in Pithoragarh on the Kali system, is the easternmost of these four. The first three are not.
The Alaknanda lies east of the Bhagirathi–Bhillangana country, not west of it. Its headwaters are near Badrinath in Chamoli, while the Bhillangana sits in Tehri and the Yamuna further west again.
- (d)Bhillangana, Yamuna, Gori, Alaknanda — Two placements fail here. The Bhillangana is put ahead of the Yamuna, but the Yamuna, rising at Yamunotri in Uttarkashi, is the westernmost of the four; the Bhillangana's Tehri valley lies east of it.
The Alaknanda is then put last, east of the Gori. The Alaknanda drains Chamoli and Rudraprayag, well west of the Gori Ganga's Pithoragarh valley on the Nepal frontier.
Ordering Uttarakhand's rivers west to east is a map exercise about basins rather than a list to memorise. The state's drainage runs in longitudinal belts, each belt defined by the valley a river has cut through the Himalaya.
Moving inward from the western edge: the Yamuna–Tons country of Uttarkashi and Dehradun, then the Bhagirathi with its tributary the Bhillangana in Tehri.
Further east comes the Alaknanda in Chamoli and Rudraprayag, and finally the Kali system along the Nepal border in Pithoragarh, of which the Gori Ganga is a major feeder.
Uttarakhand's hill rivers belong to two headwater systems. The Yamuna, the Bhagirathi and the Alaknanda all end up in the Ganga, the Bhagirathi and Alaknanda meeting at Devprayag, from where the river is called the Ganga.
The Kali, running along the eastern boundary with Nepal, is the other system. Placing a name in one system or the other already fixes roughly where it sits on the map, which is what a sequencing stem asks you to do.
- The Yamuna rises at Yamunotri, below the Bandarpunch massif in Uttarkashi district, in western Uttarakhand.
- The Bhillangana rises at the foot of the Khatling glacier and joins the Bhagirathi at Old Tehri, the Tehri dam site.
- The Alaknanda rises from the Satopanth and Bhagirath Kharak glaciers near Badrinath in Chamoli district.
- The Alaknanda and the Bhagirathi meet at Devprayag, and the combined river is called the Ganga from there.
- The Gori Ganga rises from the Milam glacier in the Munsiyari tehsil of Pithoragarh district.
- The Gori Ganga joins the Kali river at Jauljibi, and the Kali runs along Uttarakhand's boundary with Nepal.
The keyed order read as a walk across the state: Uttarkashi, then Tehri, then Chamoli, then Pithoragarh.
- Ordering by a river's size or fame rather than by its position: the Alaknanda is the biggest name in this list yet stands third from the west.
- Taking a west-to-east stem and answering east to west — the exact reversal is sitting in the option list as option b.
- Guessing at the Bhillangana because the name is less familiar; it is a Bhagirathi tributary in Tehri, not a stream of the Yamuna side.
- Fixing a river by the town where it is famous rather than by the valley it drains: the Alaknanda is met at Devprayag, but its basin lies upstream in Chamoli.
This idea appears as an ordering task — rivers, ranges, districts, sanctuaries or passes arranged along a west-to-east or north-to-south line. The stem supplies no coordinates, so the work is to turn each name into a place.
A dependable method is to write the district or the headwater beside each name first, order those places on your mental map, and only then compare the result against the options.
UKPSC_2016_MAINS_PaperIV_Q12016The same task in the same state — arrange Uttarakhand rivers from west to east — so the method transfers directly. What differs is the set of anchors: it uses the Tons at the western end instead of the Yamuna the Tons feeds, and the Kali at the eastern end instead of the Gori that feeds the Kali.
UKPSC_2016_PRE_PaperI_Q252016Also Uttarakhand and also west to east, but the items are four wildlife sanctuaries — Kedarnath, Nanda Devi, Binsar and Askot — rather than rivers. The category of feature changes; the working step, fixing each name to a district and then ordering the districts, is the same.
UPSC_2024_GS1_Q62024Same west-to-east sequencing device applied to Himalayan tributaries of the Ganga — the Gomati, Ghaghara, Gandak and Kosi. The scale is what differs: that stem runs across the plains of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, while this one is contained within the hill districts of one state.
UPPSC_2024_PRE_GSI_Q762024The same west-to-east ordering, asked with mountain ranges of south-west and central Asia — Karakoram, Pontic, Hindu Kush and Zagros. The reasoning is identical, but the map is continental rather than a single state, so the anchors are countries instead of districts.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Bhillangana river of Uttarakhand joins which river at Old Tehri?
- (a)Alaknanda
- (b)Bhagirathi
- (c)Yamuna
- (d)Ramganga
Answerb — The Bhillangana rises at the foot of the Khatling glacier and flows into the Bhagirathi at Old Tehri, the site of the Tehri dam.The Alaknanda is a separate headstream that meets the Bhagirathi much lower down, at Devprayag. The Yamuna's basin lies west, across the watershed in the Uttarkashi–Dehradun belt. The Ramganga belongs to a different basin again, one that leaves the hills for the plains rather than passing through the Bhagirathi valley.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which of the following rivers of Uttarakhand has the Milam glacier as its principal source?
- (a)Bhillangana
- (b)Gori Ganga
- (c)Alaknanda
- (d)Yamuna
Answerb — The Gori Ganga rises from the Milam glacier in the Munsiyari tehsil of Pithoragarh district and joins the Kali at Jauljibi.Each of the others has a different source. The Bhillangana comes off the Khatling glacier in Tehri, the Alaknanda from the Satopanth and Bhagirath Kharak glaciers near Badrinath, and the Yamuna from Yamunotri below the Bandarpunch massif.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which river runs along Uttarakhand's boundary with Nepal?
- (a)Gori Ganga
- (b)Kali (Sharda)
- (c)Bhillangana
- (d)Alaknanda
Answerb — The Kali, also called the Sharda, runs along the state's eastern boundary with Nepal in the Pithoragarh–Champawat belt.The Gori Ganga flows within Pithoragarh and joins the Kali at Jauljibi, so it feeds the boundary river rather than forming it. The Bhillangana lies far to the west in Tehri, and the Alaknanda in Chamoli and Rudraprayag — both well inside the state.