Which of the following drainage systems drains the lands of Bihar ?
Ghagra
The Ghaghara drains part of Bihar — option 1.
Bihar’s drainage in outline. The state lies almost entirely in the Ganga basin, and the Ganga flows west to east right across it, dividing it into North Bihar and South Bihar. The tributaries fall into two very different groups :
| Group | Rivers | Character |
|---|---|---|
| North bank — from the Himalaya through Nepal | Ghaghara, Gandak, Burhi Gandak, Bagmati, Kamla, Kosi, Mahananda | Perennial, snow-fed, heavily silt-laden, shift their courses and flood badly |
| South bank — from the Chhotanagpur plateau | Son, Punpun, Phalgu, Kiul, Karmanasa | Seasonal, rain-fed, rocky beds, low silt |
About the Ghaghara. It rises in the Tibetan Himalaya as the Karnali, flows through Nepal, enters India in Uttar Pradesh, and joins the Ganga near Chhapra in Bihar’s Saran district. It is the largest tributary of the Ganga by volume of discharge, and it drains the western districts of North Bihar.
Why the others do not fit. The Mahanadi rises in Chhattisgarh and reaches the Bay of Bengal through Odisha, well to the south. The Yamuna is a Ganga tributary but joins it far upstream, at Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh, so its basin lies entirely west of Bihar. The Narmada flows westward across central India into the Arabian Sea and has no connection with the Ganga system at all.
Why the north-bank rivers matter so much to Bihar. They carry enormous quantities of Himalayan silt onto a nearly flat plain, so their beds rise and their courses wander. The Kosi, called the “sorrow of Bihar”, has shifted more than a hundred kilometres westward over two centuries. Bihar is the most flood-prone state in India, with roughly three-quarters of North Bihar exposed to inundation.
Hence, the answer is Ghagra.
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