Practice Test 2

The river systems of India have shaped the country's civilisation, agriculture, and culture for thousands of years, serving as the lifelines around which great cities were founded and flourishing economies were built. The Ganga, the Yamuna, the Godavari, the Krishna, the Kaveri, the Narmada, the Tapti, and the Brahmaputra collectively drain over three million square kilometres of land and provide water to hundreds of millions of farmers, households, and industries throughout the year. The Gangetic plain, formed by millennia of sediment deposition carried down from the Himalayan ranges, is among the most fertile agricultural regions on Earth, with its deep alluvial soil supporting intensive cultivation of wheat, rice, sugarcane, lentils, and pulses that feed a substantial portion of the national population. The great river also carries enormous religious significance, with millions of pilgrims visiting its banks at Haridwar, Varanasi, Allahabad, and Patna throughout the year for ritual bathing, worship, and the immersion of the ashes of departed family members. The Deccan plateau rivers, though shorter and less voluminous than the northern systems, sustain significant agriculture and provide drinking water to the large populations of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu. The Krishna and Godavari delta regions support some of the most productive rice cultivation in the country, while the Kaveri basin is the agricultural heartland of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. River water management has become a central challenge of governance as growing urban populations, expanding irrigation networks, and industrial demand compete for a resource that is increasingly stressed by climate variability and groundwater depletion. Interstate river water disputes, such as the long-running Cauvery dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu and the Krishna water sharing arrangements among the riparian states, reflect the growing scarcity of freshwater resources and the difficulty of allocating them equitably among competing users. The National River Conservation Programme aims to restore river water quality through the construction of sewage treatment plants and the prevention of untreated industrial discharge from factories along riverbanks. The Namami Gange Mission, launched in 2015 with an outlay of twenty thousand crore rupees, committed substantial resources to cleaning the Ganga river through sewage interception, modernisation of cremation facilities at ghats, restoration of the river's ecological flow, and protection of the aquatic biodiversity including the endangered Gangetic river dolphin. The government has established the National Mission for Clean Ganga to coordinate the multiple agencies involved in river restoration and to ensure that the river meets bathing quality standards at designated monitoring points. Rivers remain objects of reverence in Indian culture, central to festivals like Chhath Puja, Kumbh Mela, Pushkaram, and Makar Sankranti that bring tens of millions of worshippers to riverbanks every year, reflecting the enduring bond between India's people and its sacred water bodies.