UPPSC 2019 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 80 of 150

Correct — D, the Mangdechhu Power Plant. The Mangdechhu Hydroelectric Project stands on the Mangdechhu river in Trongsa dzongkhag in central Bhutan and has an installed capacity of 720 MW, the figure carried by Druk Green Power Corporation, the Bhutanese state utility that owns and runs the country's hydropower stations. It was built with Government of India assistance structured as 40 per cent grant and 60 per cent loan, was conceived and designed by NHPC Ltd, and took its main equipment from BHEL. It was commissioned in 2019 and jointly inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bhutan's Prime Minister Lotay Tshering during Modi's visit to Bhutan in August 2019 — a date widely reported as 17 August 2019, although we have not confirmed the day from an official press release. 'Recently' in a December 2019 paper points squarely at that visit, which is what makes (d) the only option in the right time-frame.

• (a)Chhukha Power Plant — Chhukha is the oldest of the big India-assisted Bhutanese projects — 336 MW on the Wangchhu in Chhukha dzongkhag, with its units commissioned in the late 1980s. It is the plant that began the whole India-Bhutan hydropower relationship, which is why it is the most familiar name on the list, but it was inaugurated more than three decades before the event the question refers to.
• (b)Dagachhu Power Plant — Dagachhu is a 126 MW station in Dagana dzongkhag, commissioned in 2015 and notable as Bhutan's first hydropower project developed on a commercial, public-private basis rather than as a wholly inter-governmental one. Both its size and its date are wrong for this question.
• (c)Kurichha Power Plant — Kurichhu (the paper prints 'Kurichha') is a 60 MW plant in Mongar dzongkhag in eastern Bhutan, commissioned in 2001-02 — the smallest of the four and nearly two decades too early. Its name is a good trap because, like Mangdechhu, it ends in '-chhu' and sounds equally unfamiliar.

Hydropower is the core of the India-Bhutan economic relationship. Bhutan's rivers fall steeply from the Himalaya and are fed by snowmelt and the monsoon, which suits run-of-the-river schemes that need little reservoir storage; India finances and builds the projects on a mix of grant and loan, Indian public-sector undertakings such as NHPC design them and BHEL supplies equipment, and the surplus power is exported to India under long-term arrangements. For Bhutan the projects are a mainstay of public revenue and its largest export; for India they add clean power and anchor the closest of its neighbourhood relationships. A useful piece of vocabulary: 'chhu' means water or river in Dzongkha, so Wangchhu, Kurichhu, Dagachhu, Mangdechhu and Punatsangchhu are all rivers, and each project is simply named after the river it sits on. A 'dzongkhag' is a district.

All four options are real India-assisted or India-linked Bhutanese plants, so guessing on plausibility fails. Sort them instead on the two axes the question actually cares about — date and size. Chhukha belongs to the 1980s, Kurichhu to 2001-02, Dagachhu to 2015, and only Mangdechhu was commissioned in 2019, the year of the exam. Mangdechhu is also by a wide margin the largest of the four at 720 MW against 336, 126 and 60 MW, which is why it was worth a prime-ministerial inauguration. Anchoring to the exam date of 15 December 2019 does the rest: 'recently' can only mean the August 2019 visit to Thimphu.

• The Mangdechhu Hydroelectric Project is on the Mangdechhu river in Trongsa dzongkhag, central Bhutan, with an installed capacity of 720 MW as listed by Druk Green Power Corporation, and was commissioned in 2019.
• It was jointly inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bhutan's Prime Minister Lotay Tshering during Modi's August 2019 visit to Bhutan; the day is widely reported as 17 August 2019.
• Government of India assistance for the project was structured as 40 per cent grant and 60 per cent loan; the project was conceived and designed by NHPC Ltd, with equipment from BHEL.
• The other three options, by capacity and district: Chhukha 336 MW on the Wangchhu in Chhukha dzongkhag (units commissioned in the late 1980s); Dagachhu 126 MW in Dagana dzongkhag (2015, Bhutan's first commercially structured hydropower project); Kurichhu 60 MW in Mongar dzongkhag (2001-02).
• 'Chhu' means water or river in Dzongkha, and Bhutanese hydro projects are named after their rivers; 'dzongkhag' is the Bhutanese term for a district.
• One caveat on the figure: a small number of secondary sources list Mangdechhu at 688 MW. The operator's own 720 MW is the figure to carry.

• Choosing Chhukha because it is the name you have heard most often. Familiarity is a signal of age here, not of recency — Chhukha is a 1980s project.
• Confusing Kurichhu with Mangdechhu on the strength of the shared '-chhu' ending; every Bhutanese project name ends that way because 'chhu' simply means river.
• Quoting 688 MW for Mangdechhu from a stray secondary source. The operator, Druk Green Power Corporation, lists 720 MW.
• Reading 'recently' as of today. In a paper of December 2019 it means the twelve months before the exam, not 2026.

UPPSC asks the bilateral-project item as a plain identification — which project, which country, which year, inaugurated by whom — usually pairing an Indian Prime Minister's foreign visit with the facility opened on it; UPSC would more likely ask what kind of project it is, who financed it, or where the river runs, so learn the geography and the financing pattern alongside the name.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Chhukha Hydroelectric Project in Bhutan, built with Indian assistance, is located on which river?

  • (a)Wangchhu
  • (b)Mangdechhu
  • (c)Kurichhu
  • (d)Punatsangchhu

  Answer(a) Wangchhu — the 336 MW Chhukha project stands on the Wangchhu in Chhukha dzongkhag and was the first large India-assisted hydropower project in Bhutan.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Government of India assistance for Bhutan's Mangdechhu Hydroelectric Project was structured in which of the following ways?

  • (a)Entirely as a grant
  • (b)60 per cent grant and 40 per cent loan
  • (c)40 per cent grant and 60 per cent loan
  • (d)Entirely as a concessional loan from a multilateral bank

  Answer(c) 40 per cent grant and 60 per cent loan — the standard Indian pattern for the inter-governmental hydropower projects in Bhutan, with NHPC Ltd designing the project and BHEL supplying equipment.