RAS question
Bhakra Nangal Dam on the Sutlej River provides irrigation to:
Correct answer: (D) Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan.
The Bhakra-Nangal project supplies irrigation water to Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan.
Explanation
Bhakra Nangal Dam is a 226 m high gravity dam on the Sutlej at the Himachal Pradesh-Punjab border, with the Gobind Sagar reservoir as its storage base. The exam point is not only the dam's location or height but its command area. The official Bhakra Beas Management Board page lists regulation of water supply from the Satluj, Ravi and Beas to Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan as one of BBMB's functions. That matches the MCQ's correct option: the project serves all three states, not a single state. Rajasthan appears because Bhakra-Nangal is part of the wider inter-state river-water management system in north-west India.
Why the other options are wrong
- (A) Jammu & Kashmir is not listed in the explanation or the BBMB source as a state receiving Bhakra-Nangal irrigation supply.
- (B) Rajasthan receives water, but the official BBMB function covers Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan together, so the supply is not only to Rajasthan.
- (C) Punjab is one beneficiary, but the project also serves Haryana and Rajasthan, so limiting it to Punjab leaves out two stated states.
Concept
This tests the geography of multipurpose river-valley projects and their inter-state irrigation command areas. It recurs in RAS because Rajasthan's irrigation links are often tested through projects located outside Rajasthan as well as within it.