Question

Name any one tributary of river Ganga.

Answer 1

Hint: One of its tributaries is the longest river in Nepal. One of its tributaries meets it at the Triveni Sangam. The Taj Mahal is located on the banks of one of river Ganga’s tributaries.

Complete Answer:
- River Ganga is a sacred river in India which is worshipped as the Goddess Ganga. It is 2704km long and is the longest river in India. It originates from the Gangotri Glacier in Uttarakhand and flows down through the Northern Indian Plains and enters Bangladesh and finally drains into the Bay of Bengal. River Ganga has almost 20 tributaries which drain 11 Indian states. The most significant out of them are Yamuna and Ghagra.
- Ghaghara is the largest tributary of River Ganga in terms of volume of discharge. It is also the second longest tributary of the Ganga, measuring 1080km. Ghaghara river is the longest in Nepal. In India it flows south east from Uttar Pradesh to Bihar and then meets river Ganga near a town called Chhapra.
- Yamuna is the longest tributary of the Ganga. It is the second largest tributary in terms of contribution by volume. Yamuna originates from the Yamunotri Glacier in the lower Himalayas in Uttarakhand. It is around 1376km long and meets the Ganga at the Triveni Sangam in Prayagraj. Before merging with Ganga it drained Uttarakhand, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi. It makes up for 70% of the total supply of water in Delhi. Around 60 million people are dependent on its water today.

Note: Today, Ganga is a severely polluted river and poses a threat to many vulnerable species of animals that thrive in it. It is home to the critically endangered species of Gharial and the River Dolphin. The Namami Gange Programme was launched in 2014 to clean and conserve river Ganga. It was supposed to clean River Ganga by 2019, which has now been extended to 2020.