CDS (I) 2023 General Knowledge · Question 106 of 120

Correct — C, Both 1 and 2. Both descriptions are the standard ones. Visakhapatnam's working basin is an inner harbour set back from the open sea, reached through a narrow dredged entrance channel with the Dolphin's Nose headland standing over it — the hill shelters the entrance from the cyclones that strike the east coast — and that enclosed inner basin is what school and college geography means when it calls Visakhapatnam a land-locked harbour. Deendayal Port, the Kandla of the older textbooks, is described as a natural tidal harbour, fully protected from wave action during the monsoon; it lies in a creek off the Gulf of Kachchh, where the large tidal range both floats deep-draught ships in and helps scour the channel. So statement 1 and statement 2 both stand and the code is 'Both 1 and 2'.

• (a)1 only — Drops the tidal description of Deendayal, which is the more securely documented of the two — the port is characterised as a natural tidal harbour protected from monsoon waves.
• (b)2 only — Rejects the land-locked description of Visakhapatnam. The port's inner basin is enclosed and reached by a narrow entrance channel, which is exactly what that phrase describes.
• (d)Neither 1 nor 2 — The reflex answer for a candidate who distrusts both technical labels. Both are standard descriptions of these two ports and neither is a plant.

Harbours are classified by how they are sheltered. A land-locked harbour is enclosed by land on almost every side, with only a narrow opening to the sea, so it needs little artificial protection; a tidal port is one where the tide does the heavy work, lifting ships over shallow reaches on the flood and keeping the approach channel scoured. Visakhapatnam is the standard Indian example of the first and Kandla, now Deendayal, of the second.

Both statements use textbook vocabulary, and the honest thing to say is that these are descriptive labels rather than legal categories — a general reference will also call Visakhapatnam a natural deep-water harbour, which is not a contradiction but a different emphasis. The features behind the label are checkable, and they are what you should carry: the enclosed inner basin behind a narrow entrance channel, the Dolphin's Nose hill guarding it against east-coast cyclones, and at the other end of the country a creek harbour in the Gulf of Kachchh where the tidal range is the operating asset. Remember also that Kandla was renamed Deendayal Port in 2017, so older and newer sources use different names for the same place.

• Visakhapatnam Port, on the Andhra Pradesh coast, has an inner harbour reached through a narrow entrance channel, with the Dolphin's Nose hill sheltering it from cyclones.
• The port opened to ocean traffic in October 1933 and was formally inaugurated in December that year.
• Deendayal Port is described as a natural tidal harbour, completely protected from waves during the monsoon season.
• It lies in the Gulf of Kachchh, with facilities at Kandla creek, Tuna Tekra and Vadinar.
• Kandla Port was renamed Deendayal Port in September 2017.

• Reading 'land-locked' as meaning cut off from the sea; it describes an enclosed basin with a narrow sea entrance.
• Answering under the old name and missing the question when it uses Deendayal, or the reverse.
• Assuming a tidal port must be shallow — the tide is what makes deep-draught berthing workable at Kandla.

As a two-statement code item like this, or as a match-the-port-to-its-description list covering Kandla, Visakhapatnam, Mormugao, Paradip and Kochi.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Deendayal Port, on the Gulf of Kachchh, was formerly known as

  • (a)Paradip Port
  • (b)Kandla Port
  • (c)Mormugao Port
  • (d)Ennore Port

  Answer(b) Kandla Port — it was renamed Deendayal Port in September 2017.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The hill that shelters the entrance channel of Visakhapatnam Port from east-coast cyclones is

  • (a)Dolphin's Nose
  • (b)Kailasagiri
  • (c)Simhachalam
  • (d)Ross Hill

  Answer(a) Dolphin's Nose — the headland north of the entrance channel protects the harbour from the cyclones that strike the east coast.