UPSC Mains 2025 GS1 Q17: model answer
Discuss the distribution and density of population in the Ganga River Basin with special reference to land, soil and water resources.
What the question wants
Describe where people live in the Ganga basin and how dense it is, explaining the pattern by land, soils and water.
How to structure it
Intro: basin area and population share. Body: overall density; regional variation (upper, middle, lower plain; Himalayan and plateau fringes) explained by physical factors. Concerns. Conclusion.
- 1Overall density
- 2Regional variation (upper, middle, lower plain; Himalayan and plateau fringes) explained by physical factors
- 3Concerns
Model answer
The Ganga basin covers about 26% of India's land but holds over 40% of its people, across Uttarakhand, UP, Bihar, West Bengal and parts of MP, Rajasthan, Haryana, Delhi and Jharkhand. It is one of the most densely populated river basins in the world.
Why so dense
- Land: a vast, flat alluvial plain with gentle slope, easy to plough, build on and connect.
- Soil: fertile alluvium, renewed by floods (khadar) and older bhangar terraces, supports rice, wheat and sugarcane, often two or three crops a year.
- Water: perennial snow-fed rivers, canals (Upper Ganga Canal) and one of the world's richest groundwater aquifers.
Variation within the basin
- Middle and lower plains (eastern UP, Bihar, West Bengal): highest densities, Bihar over 1,100 per sq km (Census 2011), due to rice cultivation and high rainfall.
- Upper plain (western UP, Haryana): high density with irrigation, plus urban clusters (Delhi NCR).
- Himalayan fringe: lower density on steep slopes, villages in valleys.
- Southern plateau fringe (Bundelkhand, Chotanagpur): poorer red soils and low water, so lower density.
- Urban nodes: Kanpur, Lucknow, Patna, Varanasi, Kolkata.
Pressures: shrinking farm sizes, groundwater depletion, floods in Bihar (Kosi), and pollution of the river itself.
Resources made the basin India's heartland; managing them sustainably (Namami Gange, aquifer mapping) will decide its future.
Keywords, cases and data to drop in
alluvial plain khadar and bhangar Upper Ganga Canal Bihar density 1,106/sq km Kosi floods Namami Gange groundwater
Where most answers lose marks
- Giving State densities without explaining why.
- Ignoring the land-soil-water link the question demands.
- Treating the basin as uniform.
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Question text as printed in the official UPSC question paper: https://www.upsc.gov.in/sites/default/files/GENERAL-STUDIES-PAPER%20I-QP-CSM-25-010925.pdf The model answer is original Battle IAS work; use it to learn structure, not to memorise.