An offshore terminal at Vadinar has been developed to reduce pressure from which of the following major ports in India?
- (a)Kandla Port
- (b)Cochin Port
- (c)Mormugao Port
- (d)New Mangalore Port
Correct — A, Kandla Port. Vadinar lies on the southern shore of the Gulf of Kutch in Gujarat, in the same gulf as Kandla (officially the Deendayal Port), India's highest-tonnage major port. Kandla is a tidal port whose harbour cannot take very large, deep-draught crude tankers, so an offshore single-point-mooring terminal was built at Vadinar to receive those supertankers and pipe the crude ashore to the Jamnagar/Vadinar refineries. By handling the bulk crude traffic offshore, Vadinar takes load off Kandla — hence it relieves Kandla Port.
- (b)Cochin Port — Cochin is a natural harbour on the Kerala coast, far to the south and on a different coastline segment. Vadinar, in the Gulf of Kutch, has nothing to do with easing traffic at Cochin.
- (c)Mormugao Port — Mormugao in Goa is primarily an iron-ore export port on the Konkan coast; it is not a crude-oil port and is nowhere near Vadinar's Gulf of Kutch location.
- (d)New Mangalore Port — New Mangalore is a major port in Karnataka on the south-west coast. It is unrelated to the Vadinar crude terminal, which sits in Gujarat beside Kandla.
Vadinar is an offshore crude-oil import terminal in the Gulf of Kutch, Gujarat. It uses single-point-mooring buoys well out at sea so that very large crude carriers, which draw too much water for a shallow tidal harbour, can discharge oil that is then pumped by pipeline to nearby refineries. It was developed as a satellite terminal to ease congestion at Kandla (Deendayal Port).
All four options are west-coast ports, which is the trap. Fix the geography first: Vadinar is in the Gulf of Kutch in Gujarat, and the only listed port in that same gulf is Kandla. Once you place Vadinar next to Kandla, the answer follows — the offshore terminal exists to take the deep-draught crude traffic that the tidal harbour at Kandla struggles to handle.
- Vadinar is on the Gulf of Kutch, Gujarat, close to Kandla (Deendayal Port).
- Kandla (Deendayal Port) is a tidal major port and among India's busiest by cargo tonnage.
- Vadinar uses offshore single-point moorings to receive very large crude carriers.
- Cochin, Mormugao and New Mangalore are all major ports on other stretches of the west coast.
- Choosing any west-coast port without pinning Vadinar to the Gulf of Kutch — geography decides it.
- Confusing Vadinar (crude terminal) with an iron-ore or container port like Mormugao.
Ports are asked as location/cargo pairings — memorise which gulf or coast each major port sits on.
No directly related past PYQ was found.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Kandla Port, one of India's busiest major ports, is located on the
- (a)Gulf of Mannar
- (b)Gulf of Kutch
- (c)Gulf of Khambhat
- (d)Palk Strait
Answer(b) Gulf of Kutch — Kandla (Deendayal Port) lies on the Gulf of Kutch in Gujarat.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Which of the following is chiefly an iron-ore exporting major port of India?
- (a)Mormugao
- (b)Kandla
- (c)Cochin
- (d)Haldia
Answer(a) Mormugao — the Goa port is a leading iron-ore export outlet.