UPPSC 2019 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 121 of 150

Correct — B, Satpura, Mahadeo, Maikal and Chhotanagpur. The four names are not four separate ranges scattered at random; they are consecutive links in one continuous highland belt that runs across peninsular India from the Gujarat coast to the Jharkhand plateau, and the sequence simply follows that belt eastwards. The Satpura range proper begins in the west with the Rajpipla Hills near the lower Narmada in Gujarat and runs east, parallel to and south of the Narmada. Its middle section, around Pachmarhi in Madhya Pradesh at roughly 78 degrees East, is the Mahadeo Hills, which carry Dhupgarh (about 1,350 m), the highest point of the whole Satpura system and of Madhya Pradesh. Further east the belt swings into the Maikal range around the Amarkantak plateau at roughly 82 degrees East, on the Madhya Pradesh-Chhattisgarh border, where the Narmada and the Son both rise. Beyond that, across the Son valley, the highland continues as the Chhotanagpur plateau of Jharkhand at roughly 85 degrees East and further, the easternmost member of the set. West to east, therefore: Satpura, then Mahadeo, then Maikal, then Chhotanagpur.

• (a)Maikal, Satpura, Mahadeo and Chhotanagpur — Puts the Maikal range at the western end. The Maikal is the EASTERN arm of the Satpura system, around Amarkantak near the Madhya Pradesh-Chhattisgarh border; it cannot lie west of the Satpura range whose limb it is.
• (c)Maikal, Mahadeo, Satpura and Chhotanagpur — Same fundamental error — Maikal placed first, in the west. It then puts the Satpura east of the Mahadeo Hills, which reverses the relationship: the Mahadeo Hills are a section WITHIN the Satpura, lying east of the range's western Rajpipla end, not west of the range as a whole.
• (d)Satpura, Mahadeo, Chhotanagpur and Maikal — The intended near-miss. It gets the first two right and then swaps the last pair, pushing Chhotanagpur ahead of Maikal. Amarkantak and the Maikal range (about 82 degrees East) lie clearly west of the Ranchi-Hazaribagh plateau (about 85 degrees East); the Son valley separates the two, with Maikal on its western flank and Chhotanagpur beyond it.

The Central Highlands of peninsular India form a broadly continuous, west-to-east arc of block mountains and plateaus lying between the Narmada trough in the south and the Gangetic plain in the north. Its southern rim is the Vindhyan range, which looks down on the Narmada trough; the Satpura, a horst uplifted between the Narmada and the Tapi, lies SOUTH of that trough and is conventionally grouped with the Deccan Plateau rather than the Central Highlands. Where the Maikal meets the Vindhyan edge, the Amarkantak plateau forms a major water divide, sending the Narmada west to the Arabian Sea and the Son east to the Ganga. East of the Son valley the same highland is continued by the Chhotanagpur plateau, a Gondwana-age block of ancient Precambrian rock carrying India's densest concentration of coal and iron.

Sequence questions of this type are answered fastest by fixing the two ends and letting the middle fall into place. Chhotanagpur, in Jharkhand, is unmistakably the eastern anchor — nothing in the list is further east. The Satpura, reaching the Gujarat coastal tract, is unmistakably the western anchor. That alone eliminates options (a) and (c), which begin with Maikal, and leaves only the ordering of Maikal versus Chhotanagpur, which option (d) gets wrong. The trap works because 'Maikal' sounds unfamiliar and detached, while candidates who remember Amarkantak as the Narmada's source often file it mentally as a 'western' feature — it is the source of a westward-flowing river, but it is itself the eastern end of the Satpura. Anchoring the memory on longitudes rather than on river directions fixes this permanently.

• The Satpura range runs west to east, parallel to and south of the Narmada, from the Rajpipla Hills in Gujarat towards the Maikal range in the east; the Mahadeo Hills form its central section.
• Dhupgarh, about 1,350 m, in the Mahadeo Hills near Pachmarhi, is the highest point of the Satpura range and of Madhya Pradesh.
• The Amarkantak plateau, at the junction of the Maikal range with the Vindhyan-Satpura highland, is the common source of the Narmada, the Son and the Johilla — a first-order water divide.
• The Chhotanagpur plateau of Jharkhand is the easternmost element of the belt, a Precambrian block whose Gondwana troughs hold the Jharia, Bokaro, Karanpura and Raniganj coalfields; Parasnath Hill is its highest point.
• In Uttar Pradesh this highland belt is represented by the Vindhyan-Kaimur scarp of Mirzapur and Sonbhadra; Sonbhadra is the only UP district that touches four other states — Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar.

• Treating the Mahadeo Hills and the Maikal range as ranges separate from the Satpura — both are sections of the Satpura system, which is why the sequence runs through them.
• Assuming Amarkantak and the Maikal lie in the west because the Narmada, which rises there, flows west; the river's direction says nothing about the range's longitude.
• Confusing the Maikal range with the Kaimur range — Kaimur is the eastern arm of the VINDHYAN system, north of the Son, running through Mirzapur and Sonbhadra in UP into Bihar.

Both commissions test peninsular relief as ordering and matching rather than as description — UPSC asked the very same ranges in a north-to-south sequence in 2004 and as a hills-to-region matching set in 2014, while UPPSC prefers the west-to-east form seen here, so learn the ranges by their position on the map, not by a list of names.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Dhupgarh, the highest peak of the Satpura range, is located in which one of the following hills?

  • (a)Maikal range
  • (b)Mahadeo Hills
  • (c)Rajpipla Hills
  • (d)Kaimur Hills

  Answer(b) Mahadeo Hills — Dhupgarh, about 1,350 m, stands near Pachmarhi in the Mahadeo Hills, the central section of the Satpura in Madhya Pradesh, and is the highest point of both the range and the state.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Amarkantak plateau, lying at the eastern end of the Satpura highland, is the source of which one of the following pairs of rivers?

  • (a)Narmada and Tapi
  • (b)Narmada and Son
  • (c)Son and Mahanadi
  • (d)Mahanadi and Damodar

  Answer(b) Narmada and Son — both rise on the Amarkantak plateau, the Narmada flowing west to the Arabian Sea and the Son east to the Ganga, making it a first-order water divide; the Tapi rises at Multai and the Mahanadi near Sihawa in Chhattisgarh.