The Chitrotpala River in

Odisha Odisha (), formerly Orissa (List of renamed places in India, the official name until 2011), is a States and union territories of India, state located in East India, Eastern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by ar ...

state,

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

, is a

distributary A distributary, or a distributary channel is a stream channel that branches off and flows a main stream channel. It is the opposite of a ''tributary'', a stream that flows another stream or river. Distributaries are a result of river bifurc ...

of the

Mahanadi The Mahanadi River is a major river in East Central India. It drains an area of around and has a total length of . Mahanadi is also known for the Hirakud Dam which was the first major multipurpose river valley project after India's independenc ...

, situated in both Kendrapara and

Cuttack Cuttack (, or officially Kataka in Odia language, Odia ), is the former capital, deputy capital and the 2nd largest city of the Indian state of Odisha. It is also the headquarters of the Cuttack district. The name of the city is an anglicised f ...

districts.

Course

The river starts from Guali/

Salepur Salepur is a town and a Notified Area Council in the Cuttack district of Odisha, India. About The name Salepur is primarily derived from the combination of two words viz. sali (Paddy) and Pur (Place). It is due to the reason that Salepur belt ...

, downstream towards Kendrapara. Within again it subdivides into Chitroptala (main river) and Luna (distributary). Luna being the deeper one carries almost 60 percent of water of the main river in dry season. In its way the Distributary Luna further divided in to two rivers near Danpur - the main river as Luna and distributary as Karandia. These two rivers confluent near the village Karandia after flowing 30 kilometers independently. It is well observed that maximum water of Chiropatala gets carried by Luna and subsequently by Karandia for being deeper during partition. However in rainy season the equation changes when there is mammoth amounts of rain water to be evacuated. Chitroptala flows eastward approximately and near Paradeep it joins with its tributary river Luna. It merges into the

Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean. Geographically it is positioned between the Indian subcontinent and the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese peninsula, located below the Bengal region. Many South Asian and Southe ...

near Paradeep. It has six bridges across it in . The bridges are at Shishua, Nemala-Jaladia, Narendra pur, Gardapur, Patkura and finally near Haldia-Gada. Its distributary Luna has two major bridges ;one at Katikata-Asureswara and the second one near Danpur. The river itself is one of the major tributary of Mahanadi. It has a sandy bed, Jhaun forest, local-myth and pilgrimage prospects and sugarcane, paddy and groundnut cultivation along its course. Salipur is the most happening place situated in the bank of Chitoptala, known for Rassagolla (an Odia cuisine), education and business. Nemala is known in coastal Odisha for Malika-bachana (a purana) which was depicted by the saint Acyutananda five hundred years ego, since then the place is Nemala-Bata. Another place is Kuda-Nagari at its bank, which is known for Magha-Mela. In the Hindu month of Magha, thousands of pilgrims from Cuttack and Kendrapara district take the holy-dip in the river and offer tarpan to their ancestors (pitrupurush). Other places along its course are Gardpur (revenue office), Patkura (police-station) in Kendrapara district.

Agriculture and floods

The river is useful to nearby villagers to cultivate winter crops and as well as summer crops. Surfaced roads have been constructed on the river embankments on both sides, which helps thousand of villagers to travel from their village to Cuttack/Bhubaneswar/Salipur. However, in rainy season the river brings havoc to the nearby villages in terms of heavy flooding. Almost in every rainy season, the river brings trauma to the villages downstream.{{Cite web , date=2008-09-27 , title=Orissa flood victims suffer as relief measures not enough , url=https://indianexpress.com/article/news-archive/orissa-flood-victims-suffer-as-relief-measures-not-enough/ , access-date=2024-02-14 , website=The Indian Express , language=en

References

External links

* http://wikimapia.org/2672648/River-Chitroptala Rivers of Odisha Kendrapara district Cuttack district