Which pair of rivers cuts the Tropic of Cancer twice over Chhota Nagpur Plateau ?
Suwarnarekha – Damodar
This question was deleted by BPSC in the final answer key for Set J. The reason is that no pair among the four can be established cleanly: the courses of these rivers lie within a fraction of a degree of the Tropic, and whether a given river crosses it twice depends on the scale of the map used and on where the source is taken to be. The pairing usually quoted in Jharkhand geography is the Subarnarekha and the Damodar, option 2, and that is the answer given here.
The geography behind it. The Tropic of Cancer lies at about 23° 26′ N and runs across the Chhotanagpur plateau a little north of Ranchi. Four rivers rise on that plateau within a very short distance of the line, and they then flow in quite different directions :
| River | Rises | Flows | Joins |
|---|---|---|---|
| Damodar | Near Khamarpat hill, Latehar, just north of the Tropic | East and south-east across the coalfields | The Hooghly; called the Sorrow of Bengal before the DVC dams |
| Subarnarekha | Near Nagri, close to Ranchi, close to the Tropic | East and south-east past Jamshedpur | The Bay of Bengal directly |
| North Koel | Ranchi plateau | North-west | The Son, and so the Ganga |
| South Koel | Near Nagri also | South-west | The Sankh, forming the Brahmani |
Why a river can cut a latitude twice. A river rising just north of a parallel and then meandering across a nearly flat plateau surface may dip south of it and swing back north before settling into its final direction. Over the gently undulating Chhotanagpur upland, where the watershed between the Ganga and the Bay of Bengal drainage runs close to the Tropic, exactly this happens — which is what the question is pointing at.
A striking feature of the region. The Ranchi plateau is a true radial water divide: the Damodar and Subarnarekha go east, the North Koel north to the Son, and the South Koel south-west to the Brahmani. Four large rivers therefore begin within a few dozen kilometres of one another and reach the sea by entirely different routes.
Hence, the best available answer is Suwarnarekha – Damodar, with the caveat that BPSC deleted the question.
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