Indian Geography Questions and Answers

Answer: C

The institute is at Kota.

The Irrigation Management and Training Institute (IMTI) at Kota trains irrigation engineers, field staff and farmers in water management. Kota is the centre of the Chambal command area, one of the state's oldest large canal irrigation systems, which is why the institute was set up there.

Bikaner, Barmer and Udaipur do not host this institute.

Answer: B

The Mahi Bajaj Sagar dam is at Borkhera.

The dam is built across the Mahi river at Borkhera in Banswara district, in the south of Rajasthan, and is named after Jamnalal Bajaj. It supplies irrigation and hydroelectric power to the tribal districts of the region.

The Mahi does not flow near Bikaner or Jaisalmer in the west, and Kota is on the Chambal, where the Kota Barrage stands, so those places are ruled out.

Answer: A

Desert soil is found in the western part of Rajasthan.

The arid west, the Thar desert in districts such as Jaisalmer, Barmer, Bikaner and Jodhpur, is covered by sandy desert soil. It is coarse, porous and low in organic matter and nitrogen, and holds little water, which makes it less fertile, though it can be productive with irrigation, as along the Indira Gandhi Canal.

The southern and eastern parts have red, black and alluvial soils, and the north-east has alluvium, so the other options are ruled out.

Answer: D

Desert soil is confined mainly to Jaisalmer.

Jaisalmer lies in the heart of the Thar, in the arid west, where sandy desert soil with little organic matter covers most of the land.

Tonk and Jaipur in the east have mostly alluvial and loamy soils, and Banswara in the humid south has red and black soils, so none of them is the desert-soil region.

Answer: D

Bamboo forest is a sub-type of tropical dry deciduous forest.

In the Champion and Seth classification of Indian forests, dry bamboo brakes are a sub-type of the tropical dry deciduous forests. In Rajasthan they occur in the wetter south and south-east, in districts such as Banswara, Udaipur and Chittorgarh and on Mount Abu.

Tropical thorn forest covers the dry west and carries no bamboo. Sub-tropical mountain forest is found only around Mount Abu, and tidal (mangrove) forests grow on sea coasts, which Rajasthan does not have.

Answer: A

Yellow marble is found in Jaisalmer.

Jaisalmer is known for its yellow marble and golden-yellow sandstone, the stone that gives the city's fort and havelis their colour and earns it the name 'Golden City'.

Baislana (Bhainslana) in Jaipur district is known for black marble and Jalore for granite, so neither is the yellow marble region, and Pali is not its source either.

Answer: A

Paddy is a major crop of the Humid Southern Plain.

The Humid Southern Plain agro-climatic zone covers the Banswara and Dungarpur region and neighbouring parts of southern Rajasthan. It receives the highest rainfall in the state, which allows paddy to be grown as a principal kharif crop alongside maize.

The arid western plain is far too dry for paddy, and the semi-arid eastern plain and the irrigated north-western plain are better known for crops such as pearl millet, wheat, mustard and cotton, so the key places paddy in the southern zone.

Answer: D

The sanctuary has been developed in Jodhpur.

It commemorates Amrita Devi Bishnoi, who in 1730 gave her life with 363 Bishnois at Khejarli in Jodhpur to stop khejri trees being felled. The Bishnoi community's protection of the blackbuck (krishna mriga) is part of the same tradition, and the sanctuary for the animal was developed in Jodhpur district in her name.

Jaipur, Udaipur and Sawai Madhopur are not where this sanctuary is located.

Answer: D

The statement that is not true is that dried yellow beans of the khejri are stored and used for cooking round the year.

What Rajasthan dries and stores for cooking is sangri, the green, unripe pods of the khejri (Prosopis cineraria), which are cooked as a vegetable through the year, famously in ker-sangri. Yellow beans are not the stored food.

The other statements are accepted. The ripe, dried pods, called khokha, have a sweetish pulp and are eaten, especially by children. Khejri is the most dominant tree of the arid west, and it was declared the state tree of Rajasthan in 1983, the year the option gives as 1982-83.

Answer: B

The keyed answer is more than 60%.

Western Rajasthan is the core of the Thar, and most of it is affected by wind erosion and sand deposition, water erosion, salinity and loss of vegetation. ISRO's Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas of India puts the share of Rajasthan's land undergoing degradation at over 60 per cent, and the proportion in the arid western districts is higher still.

'Less than 50%' understates the problem, and the precise figures of 55% and 58% are below the share the standard sources report, so the Board's answer is the open-ended 'more than 60%'.