RAS question
The Locust Warning Organisation (LWO) is headquartered in which Rajasthan city?
Correct answer: (C) Jodhpur.
The Locust Warning Organisation's field headquarters is located in Jodhpur, Rajasthan.
Explanation
The Rajasthan city to remember for the Locust Warning Organisation is Jodhpur. The official PPQS newsletter records that the Government of Imperial India established a locust warning organisation in 1939 after the desert locust plague of 1926-1931, with its headquarters then at Karachi in undivided India. In 1946 the organisation was amalgamated into the Directorate of Plant Protection, Quarantine and Storage, with central headquarters at Faridabad, while its field headquarters is located in Jodhpur, Rajasthan. This is why Jodhpur is the substantive answer for an RAS question framed around the LWO's Rajasthan location.
Why the other options are wrong
- (A) Barmer is not the city identified by the official PPQS newsletter as the LWO's field headquarters in Rajasthan.
- (B) Jaipur is not the LWO field-headquarters location; the relevant LWO field headquarters is at Jodhpur.
- (D) Bikaner is a plausible Rajasthan distractor, but the Directorate of Plant Protection, Quarantine & Storage newsletter names Jodhpur, not Bikaner, as the field-headquarters location.
Concept
This tests the institutional geography of Rajasthan's desert-locust administration. RAS often uses such questions to link a specialised government organisation with its exact Rajasthan city.