Match List – I (Lake) with List – II (Location) and select the correct answer using the codes given below the lists: List – I (Lake): A. Sala Lake, B. Badkhal Lake, C. Loktak Lake, D. Kaliveli Lake List – II (Location): 1. Arunachal Pradesh, 2. Haryana, 3. Manipur, 4. Tamil Nadu
- (a)A-1, B-2, C-3, D-4
- (b)A-2, B-1, C-3, D-4
- (c)A-1, B-3, C-2, D-4
- (d)A-1, B-4, C-2, D-3
Correct — (a) A-1, B-2, C-3, D-4. Sala (Sela) Lake sits high beside Sela Pass in Tawang district, Arunachal Pradesh (1); Badkhal Lake is a natural lake in Faridabad, Haryana (2); Loktak Lake — the largest freshwater lake in North-East India, famous for its floating phumdis — lies in Manipur (3); and Kaliveli Lake, a brackish coastal lagoon north of Puducherry, is in Tamil Nadu (4). It is the only option that pairs every lake with the right state.
- (b)A-2, B-1, C-3, D-4 — Swaps the first two: it places Sala Lake in Haryana and Badkhal Lake in Arunachal Pradesh. In fact Badkhal is the Haryana (Faridabad) lake and Sela/Sala is the Arunachal one.
- (c)A-1, B-3, C-2, D-4 — Puts Badkhal Lake in Manipur (3) and Loktak Lake in Haryana (2). Loktak, with its phumdis and the Keibul Lamjao floating national park, is unmistakably in Manipur, not Haryana.
- (d)A-1, B-4, C-2, D-3 — Sends Badkhal to Tamil Nadu, Loktak to Haryana and Kaliveli to Manipur — three wrong pairings. Kaliveli is the Tamil Nadu coastal lagoon, not a Manipur lake.
This is a lake-to-state matching item spanning very different physiographic regions: a high-altitude snow-fed lake in the Eastern Himalaya (Sela/Sala), a semi-arid Aravalli-foothill lake near Delhi (Badkhal), a large freshwater tectonic lake in the north-east (Loktak) and a coastal brackish lagoon on the Coromandel coast (Kaliveli). Recognising even two or three anchors solves it.
The quickest anchor is Loktak → Manipur (its phumdis and the world's only floating national park, Keibul Lamjao, are standard GK). Once C-3 is fixed, only options (a) and (b) survive, and Badkhal → Haryana (2) settles it as (a).
- Loktak Lake (Manipur) is the largest freshwater lake in North-East India; its floating biomass mats are called phumdis and host Keibul Lamjao National Park (home of the Sangai deer).
- Badkhal Lake is a natural lake in Faridabad district, Haryana, in the Aravalli foothills near Delhi.
- Kaliveli Lake is a large brackish-water coastal lagoon in Tamil Nadu (Villupuram district), just north of Puducherry, and an important bird wetland.
- Sela (Sala) Lake is a high-altitude lake beside Sela Pass in Tawang district, Arunachal Pradesh, snow-fed for much of the year.
- Confusing Loktak (Manipur) with Wular (J&K, largest freshwater lake in India) or Kolleru (Andhra).
- Assuming every 'brackish lagoon' must be Chilika/Pulicat and missing Kaliveli in Tamil Nadu.
UPPSC and UPSC both like lake-to-state (or lake-to-feature) match lists; fixing one or two certain pairs and eliminating usually beats memorising all four.
Some people in Manipur live in houses built on floating islands of weeds and decaying vegetation held together by suspended silt. These islands are called
- (a) Tipis
- (b) Barkhans
- (c) Phumdis
- (d) Izba
Answer(c) Phumdis
Directly on Loktak Lake, Manipur — the same C-3 pairing this match hinges on (phumdis are Loktak's floating islands).
- practice — not a real PYQ
Keibul Lamjao, the world's only floating national park, is located on which lake?
- (a)Wular Lake
- (b)Loktak Lake
- (c)Chilika Lake
- (d)Kolleru Lake
Answer(b) Loktak Lake — its phumdis form the floating habitat of the endangered Sangai deer in Manipur.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Kaliveli Lake, an important brackish-water bird habitat, lies in which State/UT?
- (a)Kerala
- (b)Andhra Pradesh
- (c)Tamil Nadu
- (d)Odisha
Answer(c) Tamil Nadu — a coastal lagoon in Villupuram district, north of Puducherry.