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RAS question

India's CEA Master Plan for the Brahmaputra Basin targets a total hydroelectric and pumped storage capacity of approximately how many GW by 2047?

Correct answer: (C) 76 GW.

India's CEA Master Plan for the Brahmaputra Basin targets about 76 GW of combined hydroelectric and pumped storage capacity by 2047.

  1. (A)

    40 GW

  2. (B)

    60 GW

  3. (C)

    76 GW

  4. (D)

    100 GW

Explanation

CEA's Brahmaputra Basin master plan gives the target as 76,075.2 MW, which is why the rounded answer is 76 GW. The figure combines 64,945.2 MW of exploitable conventional hydroelectric capacity from projects above 25 MW with 11,130 MW of pumped storage potential. The plan covers 12 sub-basins of the Brahmaputra Basin and is framed around the transmission system needed to evacuate this power in phases up to 2035 and beyond 2035. Its scale also shows why the number is much higher than a small regional hydro package: the plan envisages 31,397 ckm of additional transmission lines and an estimated cost of roughly Rs 6.4 lakh crore.

Why the other options are wrong

  • (A) 40 GW is too low because the conventional hydro component alone is 64,945.2 MW, before pumped storage is added.
  • (B) 60 GW understates the plan, since the CEA total reaches 76,075.2 MW after adding 11,130 MW of pumped storage to the hydroelectric capacity.
  • (D) 100 GW overstates the plan; the master plan's stated combined capacity is about 76 GW, not a three-figure GW target.

Concept

This tests Indian geography through river-basin resource planning, especially hydropower potential in the Northeast. It recurs in RAS because major infrastructure plans link physical geography, energy security and regional development.

Source

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