Major Rivers of India

Rivers of India play an important role in the lives of the Indians. They provide potable water, cheap transportation, electricity, and the livelihood for a large number of people all over the country. This easily explains why nearly all the major cities of India are located by the banks of rivers. The rivers also have an important role in Hindu Dharma and are considered holy by all Hindus in the country.

Seven major rivers along with their numerous tributaries make up the river system of India.
The largest basin system of the rivers pour their waters into the Bay of Bengal
Some of the rivers whose courses take them through the western part of the country and towards the east of the state of Himachal Pradesh empty into the Arabian Sea.

All major rivers of India originate from one of the three main watersheds:

The Himalaya and the Karakoram ranges
Vindhya and Satpura ranges and Chotanagpur plateau in central India
Sahyadri or Western Ghats in western India

The Indo-Gangetic Plains

Known as Ganga-Satluj Ka Maidaan (गँगा सतलज का मैदान), this area is drained by 16 major rivers. The major Himalayan Rivers are the Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra. These rivers are long,and are joined by many large and important tributaries. Himalayan rivers have long courses from their source to sea.(in India Arabian sea and Bay of Bengal)

Ganges River System

The major rivers in this system are (in order of merging, from west to east)

Ganga - Starting from Gangotri Glacier, Uttarakhand
Chambal - Not Himalayan river, covers MP and UP before merging into Yamuna
Betwa - Not Himalayan river, covers Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh before merging into Yamuna
Yamuna - Yamuna runs its most of the course parallel to Ganga before contributing its water to Ganga at Allahabad
Gomti - Starts near the junction of three borders viz. Nepal, Uttarakhand and UP
Ghaghra - Starts in Nepal near Uttarakhand
Son - Not Himalayan river, covers MP, UP, Jharkhand and Bihar. Largest of Ganga's southern tributaries
Gandak - Starts from Nepal
Kosi - Starts from Bihar, near Indo-Nepal border
Brahmputra - Merges with Ganga to form the grand river (but short in length) - Padma in Bangladesh. By now, flow velocity of both rivers slow down to considerable extent as they are in plains now.

Before entering Bangladesh, Ganga leaves a distributary Hugli, which provides water for irrigation in West Bengal

Indus River System

The 'Indus River originates in the northern slopes of the Kailash range near Lake Mansarovar in Tibet. Although most of the river's course runs through neighbouring Pakistan, as per as regulation of Indus water treaty of 1960, India can only use only 20 percent of the water in this river. A portion of it does run through Indian territory, as do parts of the courses of its five major tributaries, listed below. These tributaries are the source of the name of the Punjab of South Asia; the name is derived from the punch ("five") and aab ("water"), hence the combination of the words (Punjab) means "land with the water of five rivers". The Indus is 3,200 kilometres (2,000 mi) long.

The major rivers in Indus river system are (in order of their length):