Kistna River
Kistna River, 1908
(Sanskrit, Krishna, ' the black ')•— A great river of Southern India, which, like the Godavari and Cauvery, flows almost across the Peninsula from west to east. In traditional sanctity it is surpassed by both these rivers, and in actual length by the Godavari ; but the area of its drainage, including its two great tributaries, the Bhima and Tungabhadra, is the largest of the three. Its total length is about 800 miles, and the total area of its catchment basin about 97,000 square miles.
The Kistna rises about 40 miles from the Arabian Sea(17° 59' N. and 73° 38' E.) in the Western Ghats just north of the hill station of Mahabaleshwar, and flows southwards, skirting the eastern spurs of the hills, past Karad (Satara District), where it receives on the right bank the Koyna from the western side of the Mahabaleshwar hills, and Sangli, where it receives the waters of the Varna, also from the west, until it reaches Kurundvad, when the Panchganga joins it, again on the right bank. The river then turns eastward and flows through Belgaum District, the States of the Southern Maratha Agency, and Bijapur, into the Nizam's Dominions, after a course of about 300 miles in the Bombay Presidency. In Bijapur District it is joined on the right bank by the Ghatprabha and Malprabha from the Western Ghats. Near the hills the channel is too rocky and the stream too swift for naviga- tion, but its waters are largely used for irrigation in Satara District and in the more open country to the south-east. In Belgaum and Bijapur its banks of black soil or laterite are 20 to 50 feet high, especially on the south side, and the stream forms many islands covered with babul bushes.
On entering the Nizam's Dominions (at Echampet in Raichur District) the Kistna drops from the table-land of the Deccan proper down to the alluvial doabs of Shorapur and Raichur. The fall is as much as 408 feet in about 3 miles. In time of flood a mighty volume of water rushes with a great roar over a succession of broken ledges of granite, dashing up a lofty column of spray. The first of the doabs mentioned above is formed by the confluence of the BhIma, which brings down the drainage of Ahmadnagar, Poona, and Sholapur ; the second by the confluence of the Tungabhadra, which drains the north of Mysore and the ' Ceded Districts ' of Bellary and Kurnool. At the point of junction with the Tungabhadra in the eastern corner of Raichur District, the Kistna again strikes upon British territory, and forms for a considerable distance the boundary between the eastern portion of Hyderabad and the Kurnool and Guntur Districts of Madras. Its bed is here for many miles a deep, rocky channel, with a rapid fall, winding in a north-easterly direction through the spurs of the Nallamalai range and other smaller hills. At Wazlrabad in Nalgonda District it receives its last important tributary, the Musi, on whose banks stands the city of Hyderabad. The total course of the river within and along the State of Hyderabad is about 400 miles.
On reaching the chain of the Eastern Ghats, the river turns sharply south-eastwards and flows for about roo miles between the Kistna and Guntur Districts (formerly the Kistna District) of Madras direct to the sea, which it enters by two principal mouths. It is in this last part of its course that the Kistna is for the first time largely utilized for irrigation. From the point where it turns southwards the rate of fall of its channel drops rapidly from an average of 3 ½ feet a mile to 1 ½ feet, and eventually, as it nears the sea, to as little as from 7 to 9 inches. The enormous mass of silt it carries — which has been estimated to be sufficient in flood-time to cover daily an area of 5 square miles to a depth of 1 foot — has consequently in the course of ages been deposited in the form of a wide alluvial delta which runs far out into the sea and slopes gradually away from either bank of the river, with an average fall of 18 inches to the mile. At Bezwada, at the head of this delta, the Kistna runs through a gap 1,300 yards in width in a low range of gneissic hills, and here a great masonry dam has been thrown across the river and turns its waters into a network of irrigation channels which spread throughout the delta. (See Kistna Canals.) Immediately below the dam the river is also crossed by the East Coast line of the Madras Railway on a girder-bridge of twelve spans of 300 feet. The flood velocity of the Kistna at this point is about 6-|- miles an hour, and the flood discharge has been estimated to reach the enormous figure of 761,000 cubic feet a second.
The Kistna is too rapid for navigation above the dam, but between Bezwada and its mouth sea-going native craft ply upon it for about six months in the year. The main irrigation canals are also navigable, and connect Kistna District with its northern neighbour Godavari, and, by means of the Buckingham Canal, with the country to the southwards and the city of Madras.
This article has been extracted from THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908. OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. |
Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts. Some units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.
