All exercise questions (and the in-text questions and activities) from the NCERT textbook India: People and Economy, Chapter 7, “Transport and Communication”, exactly as the English edition prints them, with a full model answer for each. Try your own answer first, then check it against this one.
1 Choose the right answers of the following from the given options
Q. In how many zones has the Indian Railways system been divided?
(a) 9 (b) 12 (c) 17 (d) 14
Answer: (c) 17. The chapter states that because of its very large size, the Indian railway system has been divided into 17 zones, to reduce pressure on a centralised management system.
Q. On which river and between which two places does the National Waterway No. 1 lie?
(a) The Brahmaputra, Sadiya-Dhubri (b) The Ganga, Haldia-Prayagraj (c) West Coast Canal, Kottapuram to Kollam (d) Godavari-Kakinada Puducherry
Answer: (b) The Ganga, Haldia-Prayagraj. Table 7.3 gives NW 1 as the Prayagraj-Haldia stretch (1,620 km) on the river Ganga, navigable by mechanised boats up to Patna and by ordinary boats up to Haridwar. Option (a) describes NW 2, option (c) describes NW 3, and option (d) describes NW 4.
Q. In which of the following years was the first radio programme broadcast?
(a) 1911 (b) 1936 (c) 1927 (d) 1923
Answer: (d) 1923. The chapter states radio broadcasting started in India in 1923 by the Radio Club of Bombay. (1936 is when it was renamed All India Radio; 1911 is when air transport, not radio, began.)
2 Answer the following questions in about 30 words
Q. Which activity does transportation convey? Name three major modes of transportation.
Answer: Transportation conveys the movement of goods, commodities and people from the place of their production or availability to the place of their use. Its three major modes are land transport, water transport and air transport.
Q. Discuss advantages and disadvantages of pipeline transportation.
Answer: Advantages: pipelines are the most convenient and efficient mode for moving liquids and gases (even solids, as slurry) over long distances, without the loss or spillage that road/rail transport of the same material would involve. Disadvantage: a pipeline is fixed and can carry only the specific liquid or gas it is built for; it cannot be used for carrying general goods or passengers, and re-routing it is far costlier than re-routing a road.
Q. What do you mean by ‘communication’?
Answer: Communication means exchanging our views, ideas and messages from one place to another, or from one individual to another, with the help of various means: historically drums, smoke signals and fast runners, and today the post office, telegraph, telephone, satellite and internet.
3 Answer the following questions in about 150 words
Q. Which are the chief means of transportation in India? Discuss the factors affecting their development.
Answer: India’s chief means of transportation are road transport, rail transport, water transport (inland and oceanic), air transport, and oil/gas pipelines. Road transport carries about 85% of passengers and 70% of freight and suits short distances; it is classified into National Highways, State Highways, Major District Roads and Rural Roads. Rail transport, introduced in 1853, is the largest government undertaking, divided into 17 zones, and remains the main means of mass transport. Water transport is the cheapest mode, best for heavy and bulky goods, but limited by competition from road/rail and by river-water diversion for irrigation. Air transport is the fastest mode, essential for a vast country with diverse terrain and climate, but costlier and historically less widespread. Development of all these has been shaped by economic and technological progress, government planning (the Nagpur Plan, the twenty-year road plan, NHAI, Bharatmala Pariyojana), colonial-era priorities (resource exploitation, which unevenly connected certain regions by rail), and the country’s own difficult terrain, which makes road, rail and even pipeline construction harder and costlier in hilly, forested and remote regions.
Q. Give a detailed account of the development of railways in India and highlight their importance.
Answer: Indian Railways was introduced in 1853, when a line was constructed from Bombay to Thane covering a distance of 34 km. It grew to become the largest government undertaking in the country, with a network length of 67,956 km (Railway Yearbook 2019-20), and because of its very large size it has been divided into 17 zones to reduce pressure on centralised management. On the basis of track width, three gauge categories exist: broad gauge (1.676 m, 63,950 km in 2019-20), metre gauge (1 m, 2,402 km) and narrow gauge (0.762 m or 0.610 m, 1,604 km, mostly in hilly areas), with an ongoing programme to convert metre and narrow gauge lines to broad gauge. Steam engines have been replaced by diesel and electric engines, raising speed and haulage capacity and improving the environment at stations, and metro rail has revolutionised urban transport. The Konkan Railway (1998), a 760-km engineering marvel crossing 146 rivers, nearly 2,000 bridges and 91 tunnels between Roha (Maharashtra) and Mangaluru (Karnataka), is the most significant post-Independence extension. Importance: Indian Railways moves both freight and passengers, contributes to economic growth, and, as Mahatma Gandhi observed, “brought people of diverse cultures together to contribute to India’s freedom struggle.”
Q. Describe the role of roads in the economic development of India.
Answer: Roads carry about 85% of India’s passenger traffic and 70% of its freight traffic every year, and are relatively more suitable than rail for shorter-distance travel, so they form the base layer connecting production sites to markets across the country. National Highways, though only about 2% of total road length, carry 40% of road traffic and link state capitals, major cities, ports and railway junctions, supporting inter-state trade and defence movement; NHAI’s Golden Quadrilateral (5,846 km) and North-South/East-West Corridors were built specifically to cut the time, distance and cost of moving goods between India’s biggest markets. State Highways, District Roads and Rural Roads extend this network down to the district and village level. Rural Roads alone make up about 80% of total road length and are vital links that let agricultural produce reach markets and allow rural areas to access towns, schools, and hospitals. The Bharatmala Pariyojana’s further ~26,000 km of Economic Corridors, along with ring roads and bypasses to decongest cities, is explicitly aimed at improving logistics efficiency for the economy. Despite this, roads still concentrate around urban centres, and rural and remote areas remain the least connected, which is precisely why closing this gap matters so much for balanced economic development.
4 In-text questions and activities (asked within the chapter)
Q. Collect information about National Highway number (old and new) from the website morth.nic.in/national-highway-details.
Answer: This is a website activity. Note down a few National Highways that pass through or near your state, with the old number and the new number given on the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways website. What the chapter itself gives about National Highways is examinable: they are built and maintained by the Central Government, grew from 19,700 km (1951) to 1,36,440 km (2020), form only about 2 per cent of total road length but carry 40 per cent of road traffic.
Q. Why are the rural roads’ density very low in hilly, plateau and forested areas? Why does the quality of rural roads deteriorate away from the urban centres?
Answer: The chapter says the density of rural roads is influenced by the nature of the terrain. In hilly, plateau and forested areas the slopes, rocky surfaces, dense forests and scattered small settlements make road building difficult and costly, and there is little traffic to justify it, so density stays low. Away from urban centres, roads carry less traffic and get less money and attention for repair and maintenance (the chapter notes that roads concentrate in and around urban centres and rural and remote areas have the least connectivity), so their quality deteriorates.
Q. Why have Bengaluru and Hyderabad in the South and Delhi, Kanpur and Patna in north India emerged as important nodes?
Answer: A node is a point where many routes meet. These cities are large centres of population, administration, industry and trade (Bengaluru and Hyderabad also of information technology), so National Highways, railway lines and air routes from many directions converge on them. Delhi is the national capital; Kanpur and Patna lie on the densely populated Ganga plain on the main road and rail corridors of north India. Because traffic from many regions passes through or ends at these cities, they have become important transport nodes.
Q. Which cities of India have Metro Rail Facility? Collect information about it and discuss in the classroom.
Answer: Metro rail runs in several large cities, for example Kolkata (the oldest, with its own Metro Railway zone, Table 7.2), Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kochi, Jaipur, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Nagpur and Pune. For the classroom discussion, use the chapter’s point: metro rail has revolutionised urban transport, and together with replacing diesel buses by CNG-run vehicles it is a welcome step towards controlling air pollution in urban centres.
The book’s own Project asks you to find out the facilities that Indian Railways provide to passengers. There is no single set answer, so build your project like this:
- Collect: visit your nearest station or its enquiry counter, read the notices and the Indian Railways website, and talk to a few passengers.
- Sort what you find under heads: booking and information; facilities at the station; facilities on the train; facilities for special groups (senior citizens, people with disabilities, students).
- Link it to the chapter: mention the size of the network, the zones (Table 7.2) and the gauges, and why such a large system needs these services.
- Present it: a chart or a short report with photographs, ending with two or three suggestions of your own.
Q1(ii) is the exercise most likely to trip a student who has only skimmed Table 7.3: read every option’s river AND its two place names together, since NW 1-4 all pair a river with two place names in a similar format. Q1(i) and Q1(iii) are direct, single-fact recall questions, so make sure “17 zones” and “1923, Radio Club of Bombay” are both learnt as standalone facts, not only inside the 150-word answers.