BPSC 70th CCE Re-exam Prelims General Studies · Question 138 of 142

Correct — B, Krishna. Divi Island, known locally as Diviseema, is a deltaic island in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh, and the geography that produces it is exactly what the stem describes. At Puligadda, near Avanigadda, the Krishna splits into two arms before reaching the sea. One arm meets the Bay of Bengal at Hamsaladeevi in Koduru mandal, the other near Gullalamoda in Nagayalanka mandal, and the fertile low-lying tract enclosed between them, with the sea on the third side, is Divi. The name is Telugu and says what it is: deevi means island, seema means region or country, so Diviseema is 'the region of the island'. It was administered as Divi taluk under that name and today comprises seven mandals — Avanigadda, Challapalli, Mopidevi, Nagayalanka, Koduru, Ghantasala and Movva — with Avanigadda and Challapalli as the main towns. The island is watered by canals drawn from the Prakasam Barrage at Vijayawada, upstream on the same river, and its seaward fringe carries dense mangroves that are notified as the Krishna Wildlife Sanctuary. Two other things are worth attaching to the name. Historically, Divi was the stronghold of the Ayya chiefs and was taken by the Kakatiya ruler Ganapati in his coastal Andhra campaign, which is how the island enters medieval Deccan history. Recently, it is remembered for the cyclone of 19 November 1977, when a storm surge swept the Diviseema tract and killed an estimated ten thousand people — one of the worst cyclone disasters in Indian records and the event that gave the place its grim national recognition. The Krishna itself is India's third longest river at about 1,400 kilometres, rising in the Western Ghats near Mahabaleshwar in Satara district of Maharashtra at roughly 1,300 metres, and running east through Karnataka and Telangana into Andhra Pradesh; the Krishna–Godavari delta together is called the rice granary of India.

• (a)Godavari — The most reasonable wrong answer, because the Godavari's delta lies immediately to the north and does exactly the same thing — it splits into the Gautami and Vasishta branches and encloses the tract known as Konaseema. That is the Godavari's famous deltaic island region; Divi is not in it. A candidate who knows that the Andhra coast has a deltaic island and reaches for the bigger river lands here.
• (c)Vimasadhara — Printed as 'Vimasadhara' in the booklet and meaning the Vamsadhara, a modest east-flowing river that rises near Lanjigarh in Kalahandi district of Odisha at about 400 metres, runs roughly 278 kilometres and reaches the Bay of Bengal at Kalingapatnam in Srikakulam district. It is not a Godavari tributary and it builds no delta of consequence — far too small a river to enclose an island of seven mandals.
• (d)Mahananda — A river of the wrong half of the country. The Mahananda flows through Bihar and West Bengal before crossing into Bangladesh and is a tributary of the Ganga, so it has no delta of its own at all — its water reaches the sea through the Ganga–Brahmaputra system. For a Bihar candidate it is the familiar name on the list, which is exactly why it is offered.

A delta forms where a river's sediment load exceeds what waves and tides can carry away, so the channel builds land seaward, splits into distributaries and drops its silt between them. India's east coast is a coast of deltas because its peninsular rivers flow east into the shallow Bay of Bengal — the Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishna and Cauvery all build one, while the west-flowing Narmada and Tapi, running through rift valleys into a deeper sea, build estuaries instead. Whenever two distributaries diverge and rejoin, or diverge and reach the sea separately, the land they enclose becomes an island in everything but geology: Divi between the Krishna's two arms, Konaseema between the Godavari's Gautami and Vasishta branches, Srirangam and Shivanasamudra where the Cauvery forks and reunites. These tracts share a profile — very flat, very fertile, densely settled, canal-irrigated from a barrage upstream, fringed by mangrove on the sea side, and dangerously exposed to storm surge, which is why cyclone history and delta geography are usually the same syllabus topic.

Two eliminations do most of the work here. The Mahananda is a Ganga tributary in Bihar and Bengal and therefore has no delta of its own, so it goes at once. The Vamsadhara is a short north-Andhra river reaching the sea at Kalingapatnam with no distributary system worth the name, so it goes too. That leaves the two big deltas of the Andhra coast, and the discriminator is a single pairing that repays memorising: Konaseema belongs to the Godavari, Diviseema to the Krishna. Both names end in 'seema', both are deltaic tracts within about a hundred kilometres of each other, and mixing them up is the standard error. One anchor fixes Divi to the Krishna without any memory of the island itself — Hamsaladeevi, the pilgrimage point where the Krishna meets the Bay of Bengal, sits at the island's edge, and the confluence of a named river with the sea is the kind of detail that stays put once learnt.

• Divi Island (Diviseema) is a deltaic island in Krishna district, Andhra Pradesh, comprising seven mandals — Avanigadda, Challapalli, Mopidevi, Nagayalanka, Koduru, Ghantasala and Movva
• The Krishna divides into two arms at Puligadda near Avanigadda; one reaches the sea at Hamsaladeevi in Koduru mandal and the other near Gullalamoda in Nagayalanka mandal, enclosing the island
• The island is irrigated by canals from the Prakasam Barrage at Vijayawada, and its seaward mangroves are notified as the Krishna Wildlife Sanctuary
• The cyclone of 19 November 1977 struck this tract and is estimated to have killed about 10,000 people and a million head of livestock
• The Krishna is India's third longest river at about 1,400 km, rising in the Western Ghats near Mahabaleshwar in Maharashtra and flowing through Karnataka, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh
• The Vamsadhara rises near Lanjigarh in Kalahandi district, Odisha, runs about 278 km and joins the Bay of Bengal at Kalingapatnam — an independent river, not a Godavari tributary

• Swapping Diviseema and Konaseema — Divi belongs to the Krishna, Konaseema to the Godavari, and both names sound alike
• Treating the Vamsadhara as a Godavari tributary; UPSC has already set that exact trap, and the Vamsadhara reaches the sea on its own at Kalingapatnam
• Assuming any large Indian river builds a delta — the Mahananda is a Ganga tributary and never reaches the sea independently

BPSC names a specific feature and asks for the river, so the item is a straight place-to-river pairing that can only be got by having read the map. UPSC asks the same relationship the other way round, describing the behaviour — a river that forks and reunites to make islands — or embedding the river in a tributary list where one plausible name has to be rejected.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Konaseema, the deltaic tract enclosed between the Gautami and Vasishta branches, belongs to which river ?

  • (a)Krishna
  • (b)Godavari
  • (c)Mahanadi
  • (d)Penna

  Answer(b) Godavari — Konaseema lies between its two main distributaries, while Diviseema on the neighbouring coast belongs to the Krishna.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Prakasam Barrage, from which the Krishna delta canals are drawn, is located at

  • (a)Vijayawada
  • (b)Rajahmundry
  • (c)Nellore
  • (d)Kurnool

  Answer(a) Vijayawada — the barrage across the Krishna at Vijayawada feeds the delta canals, including those irrigating Divi Island; Rajahmundry sits on the Godavari.