Consider the following statements with reference to location of Major Ports in India: 1. Deendayal Port is situated at the head of Gulf of Khambhat. 2. Cochin Port is situated at the head of Vembanad Kayal. 3. Mormugao Port is situated at the entrance of the Zuari estuary. 4. Paradip Port is situated in the Godavari delta. Which of the statements given above are correct?

Q: What is the answer to CDS (II) 2025 GK Q103?

C. Correct — C, 2 and 3. Cochin Port stands on Willingdon Island at the head of the Vembanad Kayal, the long backwater lagoon of central Kerala, and Mormugao lies at the entrance of the Zuari estuary in Goa — both statements are the standard textbook descriptions, almost word for word. The other two have been quietly moved. Deendayal Port, still widely called Kandla, is at the head of the Gulf of KACHCHH on the far north-western coast of Gujarat, not the Gulf of Khambhat, which lies south of the Kathiawar peninsula and has no major port at its head. Paradip is on the Odisha coast in the MAHANADI delta, not the Godavari delta, which is in Andhra Pradesh several hundred kilometres to the south. Since only 2 and 3 survive, and every option except (c) carries at least one of the two falsified statements, the item resolves cleanly. (Provisional — pending the official UPSC key.)

(a)1 and 2
(b)1 and 3
(c)2 and 3
(d)3 and 4

Answer

Why

Correct — C, 2 and 3. Cochin Port stands on Willingdon Island at the head of the Vembanad Kayal, the long backwater lagoon of central Kerala, and Mormugao lies at the entrance of the Zuari estuary in Goa — both statements are the standard textbook descriptions, almost word for word. The other two have been quietly moved. Deendayal Port, still widely called Kandla, is at the head of the Gulf of KACHCHH on the far north-western coast of Gujarat, not the Gulf of Khambhat, which lies south of the Kathiawar peninsula and has no major port at its head. Paradip is on the Odisha coast in the MAHANADI delta, not the Godavari delta, which is in Andhra Pradesh several hundred kilometres to the south. Since only 2 and 3 survive, and every option except (c) carries at least one of the two falsified statements, the item resolves cleanly.

Why the others are wrong

(a)1 and 2 — Carries statement 1. Deendayal is at the head of the Gulf of Kachchh, not Khambhat. Kachchh is the northern of Gujarat's two great gulfs; Khambhat is the southern one, into which the Narmada, Tapi, Mahi and Sabarmati drain.
(b)1 and 3 — Statement 3 is right but statement 1 is not, for the same gulf swap. This is the most tempting wrong option for anyone who checks only the Goa half.
(d)3 and 4 — Carries statement 4. Paradip is in the Mahanadi delta in Odisha. The Godavari delta has no major port — the nearest is Visakhapatnam, well to the north-east of it.

Concept

India has a dozen major ports, administered centrally, and each sits on a distinctive coastal feature that fixes its position: a gulf head, a backwater lagoon, an estuary mouth, a delta or an open roadstead. Learning the feature rather than the state is what makes these items easy, because the feature is usually unique.

Deendayal Port was renamed from Kandla in 2017 and is India's busiest port by tonnage, serving the whole of north-western India through the Gulf of Kachchh. Cochin's position inside the Vembanad backwater gives it naturally sheltered deep water and made it the natural home of the country's first transshipment terminal at Vallarpadam. Mormugao, at the Zuari mouth, grew on iron-ore exports from the Goan hinterland. Paradip was built after Independence to give Odisha and the eastern hinterland an outlet, and is a Mahanadi-delta port. As of the 2025 exam the newest addition to the list was Vadhavan in Maharashtra, approved in 2024, which is a useful present-day line: the set of major ports is not fixed.

Key facts

Deendayal (formerly Kandla) is at the head of the Gulf of Kachchh in Gujarat and handles the largest cargo tonnage of any Indian port.
Cochin Port occupies Willingdon Island in the Vembanad Kayal, India's longest lake and the backwater that also carries the Kerala houseboat traffic.
Mormugao lies at the mouth of the Zuari in Goa and was built around iron-ore export.
Paradip is in the Mahanadi delta in Odisha; the Godavari delta contains no major port.
The Gulf of Khambhat receives the Narmada, Tapi, Mahi and Sabarmati and is known for a very large tidal range, which is why it suits tidal-power proposals rather than a major port.

Study next

The major ports of India, west and east coast, and the feature each occupiesVembanad Kayal and the Kerala backwater systemThe Gulf of Kachchh and the Gulf of Khambhat — rivers, tidal range and the RannEast-coast deltas: Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishna and Kaveri, and the ports near eachRecent additions and renamings among major ports, including Vadhavan

Common traps

Swapping the two Gujarat gulfs. Kachchh is the northern one and carries Deendayal; Khambhat is the southern one and carries none.
Attaching Paradip to the Godavari because both are east-coast deltas. Paradip is Odisha and the Mahanadi.
Reading 'Cochin Port is in Kochi' as enough. The tested detail is the Vembanad Kayal, not the city.

As a statement set with one or two locations quietly swapped, or as a match-the-list pairing ports with coastal features. The falsified statement is almost always a plausible neighbour rather than an absurdity.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following ports is situated at the head of the Gulf of Kachchh?
- (a)Mundra
- (b)Deendayal
- (c)Mormugao
- (d)New Mangalore
Answer(b) Deendayal — formerly Kandla, at the head of the Gulf of Kachchh and the largest Indian port by cargo tonnage.
practice — not a real PYQ
Paradip Port lies in the delta of which one of the following rivers?
- (a)Godavari
- (b)Krishna
- (c)Mahanadi
- (d)Subarnarekha
Answer(c) Mahanadi — Paradip is on the Odisha coast in the Mahanadi delta.