2022 CSAT — Q73

Locate. This asks for the best-supported inference: the best solution is the one the passage’s logic forces, not the most impressive-sounding one. The passage: India gets ~75% of its water in 120 days and too little for the other 245, and “this skewed water availability has to be managed and regulated for its consumption throughout the year.” The implied fix: store the surplus-period water for the deficit period — buffer it.

Test (find-the-line-then-match + scope-fit). (d) “buffer stocking of water through dams and recharging aquifers” directly operationalises “managed and regulated… throughout the year” — capture the monsoon surplus, release it across the dry months. Test the others: (a) “huge concrete tanks and canals” is a narrow, over-built version of storage, not the passage’s measured “managed and regulated”; (b) “changing cropping patterns” tackles demand, not the temporal skew in supply; (c) “interlinking rivers” is a grand spatial scheme, not the temporal buffering the passage describes.

Eliminate by anatomy. (a) over-states the case and narrows the fix — fixates on one heavy-infrastructure form of storage; (b) is a claim the passage never makes — addresses farming demand, not the surplus/deficit timing; (c) is a claim the passage never makes — solves spatial mismatch, not the temporal one the passage raises. The transferable rule: match the solution to the exact problem stated — here a time skew (too much then too little), which buffering, not relocation or demand-change, resolves. Key: (d).

“India gets ‘too much’ water (about 75% of annual precipitation) during 120 days (June to September) and ‘too little’ for the remaining 245 days. This skewed water availability has to be managed and regulated for its consumption throughout the year.” — the solution the passage points to is storing/buffering the surplus-period water so it is available in the deficit period. (d) “buffer stocking of water through dams and recharging aquifers” is exactly that. (a) huge concrete tanks/ canals is a narrow, over-engineered subset; (c) river-linking and (b) changing cropping patterns are not what the passage’s “managed and regulated… throughout the year” implies → (d).

The passage frames a temporal problem: floods of water in 120 days, scarcity for 245, needing year-round regulated supply. The rational, lasting answer is to store the abundant-season water and draw it down in the lean season.

• (d) buffer stocking via dams + aquifer recharge does exactly this. Correct.
• (a) narrows to heavy concrete tanks/canals — a costly subset, not the measured solution.
• (b) changes demand (cropping), not the supply-timing skew.
• (c) interlinks rivers — a spatial fix for a temporal problem.

Answer: (d).

The whole item turns on diagnosing the problem precisely: the passage describes a time skew — abundance for 120 days, scarcity for 245 — and asks for year-round availability. The matching solution must move water across time (store now, use later): buffering through dams and aquifer recharge (d). The distractors solve adjacent but different problems — demand (b) or space (c), or over-commit to one costly form of storage (a). Match the solution’s logic to the stated problem’s logic. (d).