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The
word Maharashtra, the land of the Marathi speaking people, appears to be
derived from Maharashtri, an old form of Prakrit. Some believe
that the word indicates that it was the land of the Mahars and the Rattas,
while others consider it to be a corruption of the term 'Maha Kantara' (the
Great Forest), a synonym for 'Dandakaranya'.
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Located in the north centre of
Peninsular India, with a command of the Arabian Sea through its port of
Mumbai, Maharashtra has a remarkable physical homogeneity, enforced by its
underlying geology. The dominant physical trait of the state is its plateau
character. The Maharashtra Desh is a plateau of plateaux, its western
upturned rims rising to form the Sahyadri Range and its slopes gently
descending towards the east and southeast. The major rivers and their
master tributaries have carved the plateaux into alternating broad-river
valleys and intervening higher lever interfluves, such as the Ahmednagar,
Buldana, and Yavatmal plateaux.
The Sahyadri Range is the
physical backbone of Maharashtra. Rising on an average to an elevation of
1000m. it falls in steep cliffs, to the
Konkan on the west. Eastwards, the hill country falls in steps through a
transitional area known as Mawal to the plateau level. The series of
crowning plateaux on the crest forms a distinctive feature of the Sahyadri
Range.
The Konkan, lying between the
Arabian Sea and the Sahyadri Range is narrow coastal lowland, barely 50 km.
wide. Though mostly below 200 m., it is far from being a plain country.
Highly dissected and broken, the Konkan alternates between narrow,
steep-sided valleys and low laterite plateaux.
The Satpudas,
hills along the northern border, and the Bhamragad-Chiroli-Gaikhuri Ranges on the eastern
border form physical barriers preventing easy movement, but
also serve as natural limits to the state.
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Except around Mumbai, and along
the eastern limits, the State of Maharashtra presents a monotonously
uniform, flat-topped skyline. This topography of the state is the outcome
of its geological structure. The state area, barring the extreme eastern
Vidarbha region, parts of Kolhapur and Sindhudurg, is practically
co-terminous with the Deccan Traps. Roughly 60 to 90 million years ago, the
outpouring of basic lava through fissures formed horizontally bedded basalt
over large areas. Variations in their composition and structure have
resulted in massive, well-jointed steel-grey cliff faces alternating with
structural benches of vesicular amygdaloid lava and ash layers, all of
which contribute to the pyramida-shaped hills and crest-level plateaux or
mesas. Earth sculpturing under the tropical climate completed the
panorama-sharply defining the landform features in the semi-arid
conditions, and rounding the hilltops under wetter condition. Fluvial
action by the Krishna, Bhima, Godavari, Tapi-Purna and Wardha-Wainganga
river systems has further aided in the compartmentalisation of the Desh
into broad, open river valleys, alternating with plateau interfluves, that
form the ribs of the Sahyadrian backbone. In sharp contrast, the hill
torrents of the Konkan, barely a 100 km. long, tumble down as roaring
streams which flow in deeply entrenched valleys to terminate in tidal
estuaries.
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The state enjoys a
tropical monsoon climate; the hot scorching summer from March onwards
yields to the rainy monsoon in early June. The rich green cover of the monsoon season persists
during the mild winter that follows through an unpleasant October transition,
but turns into a dusty, barren brown as the summer sets in again. The
seasonal rains from the western sea-clouds are very heavy and the rainfall
is over 400 cm., on the Sahyadrian crests. The Konkan on the windward side
is also endowed with heavy rainfall, declining northwards. East of the
Sahyadri, the rainfall diminishes to a meagre 70 cm. in the western plateau
districts, with Solapur-Ahmednagar lying in the heart of the dry zone. The
rains increase slightly, later in the season, eastwards in the Marathwada
and Vidarbha regions.
The highly pulsatory character
of the monsoon, with its short spells of rainy weather and long dry breaks,
floods, as well as droughts add much to the discomfort of the rural
economy.
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Forests comprising
only 17% of the state area cover the eastern region and the Sahyadri Range,
while open scrub jungle dots the plateaux. If Maharashtra represented the Maha Kantara in the
historic past, today little of it is left; vast sections have been denuded
and stripped of the vegetal cover.
The soils of Maharashtra are
residual, derived from the underlying basalts. In the semi-dry plateau, the regur (black-cotton soil)
is clayey, rich in iron, but poor in nitrogen and organic matter; it is
moisture-retentive. Where redeposited along the river valleys, those kali
soils are deeper and heavier, better suited for rabi crops. Farther away,
with a better mixture of lime, the morand soils form the ideal Kharif zone.
The higher plateau areas have pather soils, which contain more gravel. In
the rainy Konkan, and the Sahyadri Range, the same basalts give rise to the
brick-red laterites productive under a forest-cover, but readily stripped
into a sterile varkas when the vegetation is removed. By and large, soils
of Maharashtra are shallow and somewhat poor.
Water is the most precious
natural resource of the state, greatly in the demand, and most unevenly
distributed. A large number of villages lack drinking water, especially
during the summer months, even in the wet Konkan. Barely 11% of the net
sown area is irrigated. Perched water tables in the basalt aquifers have
contributed to increased well irrigation, which accounts for approximately
55% of the irrigable water. The granitic-gneissic terrain in the eastern
hilly area of Vidarbha accounts for all tank irrigation. Tube-wells in the
Tapi-Purna alluvium and shallow wells in the coastal sands are the other
main sources of water.
The mineral-bearing zones of
Maharashtra lie beyond the area of the basalts in eastern Vidarbha,
southern Kolhapur and the Sindhudurg area. The Chandrapur, Gadchirali, Bhandara and Nagpur
Districts form the main mineral belt, with coal and manganese as the major
minerals and iron ore and limestone as potential wealth. The Ratnagiri coast contains sizeable deposits of
illimenite.
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