Industries | ISC Class 12 Geography Notes

This note covers the location and distribution of India's industrial centres, the factors behind the growth of the major industrial regions, the agro-based sugar and cotton textile industries, the mineral-based iron and steel and petrochemical industries (including refineries), key and footloose industries, industrial clusters and the indices used to identify them, and the tourism industry: its definition, growth, natural and cultural tourist areas, tourist flows, impacts and eco-tourism measures.

What are secondary activities, and how do they differ from primary activities?

Secondary activities add value to natural resources by transforming raw materials into more useful and valuable products. Cotton in the boll has limited use, but once spun into yarn it becomes valuable and can be used for making cloth.

Iron ore cannot be used directly from the mine, but once converted into steel it gains value and can be used to make machines and tools. Secondary activities are therefore concerned with manufacturing: processing and construction.

Manufacturing ranges from handicrafts made by hand to the mass production of identical products using power-driven machinery and specialised labour in factory settings. The two forms share three features: the application of power, mass production of standardised commodities, and specialised labour working in factories.

Within manufacturing, large scale production is marked by mechanisation (using gadgets to accomplish tasks), automation (mechanisation carried out without the aid of human thinking during the process), continuing technological innovation through research and development, a complex organisational structure with extreme specialisation and division of labour, and an uneven geographic distribution: modern manufacturing has flourished in a small number of places covering less than 10 per cent of the world's land area.

This comparison shows why, although agriculture covers far more of the Earth's surface, industrial sites are much less conspicuous in area but far more intensive in the use of land, capital and labour.

What factors govern the location of large-scale industries?

Industries aim to maximise profits by reducing costs, so they are located where production costs are lowest. Several factors operate together, and no single one decides location on its own.

1. Access to market: a market means people with both a demand for the goods and the purchasing power to buy them; remote, thinly peopled areas offer small markets, while densely populated or wealthy regions of Europe, North America, Japan, Australia and South and South-east Asia provide large markets.
2. Access to raw material: industries using cheap, bulky, weight-losing raw material, such as steel, sugar and cement, locate close to the source; perishable raw material (farm produce, milk) also pulls agro-processing close to its source.
3. Access to labour supply: some manufacturing still needs skilled labour, though increasing mechanisation, automation and flexible processes have reduced dependence on labour.
4. Access to sources of energy: industries that use a great deal of power, such as the aluminium industry, locate near the energy source; coal was once the main source, and hydroelectricity and petroleum are now equally important.
5. Access to transport and communication facilities: speedy, cheap transport is needed to carry raw materials in and finished goods out; Western Europe and eastern North America developed a dense transport network that attracted industries.
6. Government policy: governments adopt regional policies to promote balanced development and set up industries in particular areas.
7. Agglomeration economies: many industries benefit from being near a leader industry and other related industries, gaining savings from the linkages between them.

What is the difference between key/basic industries and footloose industries?

Manufacturing industries can be grouped by what they produce and by how tied they are to a particular place. One useful division is between a basic (key) industry, whose output becomes the raw material of another industry, and a footloose industry, which is free to locate almost anywhere.

Definition: Basic (key) industry. The industry whose products are used to make other goods by using them as raw materials are basic industries, for example iron/steel → machines for the textile industry → clothes for consumers.

By contrast, consumer goods industries (non-basic industries) produce goods consumed directly by people, such as bread and biscuits, tea, soaps and toiletries, paper and televisions. A basic industry therefore sits earlier in a chain of production, while a consumer goods industry sits at the end of that chain, closest to the household.

Definition: Footloose industry. Foot loose industries can be located in a wide variety of places. They are not dependent on any specific raw material, weight losing or otherwise.

They largely depend on component parts which can be obtained anywhere, produce in small quantity, employ a small labour force, and are generally not polluting. The important factor in their location is accessibility by road network.

A basic industry is therefore tied to a raw-material source or a market link with other industries, whereas a footloose industry can set up almost anywhere that has good road access, because it depends on bought-in components rather than bulky local raw material. Iron and steel, a basic industry, must stay close to coal and iron-ore belts, while a small footloose unit assembling bought-in parts can choose a site mainly for its road connections rather than for any mineral or farm resource nearby. This contrast in locational freedom is one reason why basic industries cluster tightly in a few mineral-rich belts while many small footloose units are scattered more widely along good road networks across the country.

How are manufacturing industries classified?

Manufacturing industries are classified by size, by inputs/raw material, by output/product and by ownership.

A branching flow-chart divides industries under four heads. By size: cottage/household, small-scale and large-scale.

By inputs/raw material: agro-based (sugar, edible oil, cotton textile, coffee, tea, rubber), mineral-based (ferrous and non-ferrous, giving iron and steel, or copper, aluminium, gems and jewellery, or non-metallic cement and pottery), chemical-based (petrochemical, plastic, synthetic fibre, salts, fertilisers), forest-based (timber, lac, turpentine, paper) and animal-based (leather, wool).

By output/product: basic (iron and steel) and consumer goods (biscuits, textiles, vehicles). By ownership: public, private and joint sector.

Reference: Fig. 5.1

By size, household (cottage) industries are the smallest, using local raw material and simple tools worked at home by family or part-time labour for local sale or barter.

Small-scale manufacturing moves outside the home into a workshop, using local raw material, simple power-driven machines and semi-skilled labour; it provides employment and raises local purchasing power, which is why India, China, Indonesia and Brazil have developed labour-intensive small-scale manufacturing.

Large-scale manufacturing needs a large market, varied raw material, enormous energy, specialised workers, advanced technology, assembly-line mass production and large capital; it began in the United Kingdom, north-eastern USA and Europe about 200 years ago and has since spread worldwide.

By ownership, public sector industries are owned and managed by government; private sector industries are owned by individual investors; joint sector industries are run by joint stock companies, or jointly by the private and public sectors.

Which are the major industrial regions of India, and what explains their growth?

India's heavy and consumer industries are unevenly spread; a few regions account for most large-scale manufacturing, while large stretches of the country have few industries. The main industrial regions usually identified are Mumbai-Pune, the Hooghly region, Bengaluru-Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Chota Nagpur, Vishakhapatnam-Guntur, and Gurgaon-Delhi-Meerut.

On an outline map of India, shade and label the seven regions: Mumbai-Pune (west coast), the Hooghly belt (lower Ganga delta, West Bengal), Bengaluru-Tamil Nadu (southern plateau), Gujarat (Ahmedabad-Surat-Vadodara belt), Chota Nagpur (Jharkhand-Odisha-West Bengal mineral belt), Vishakhapatnam-Guntur (Andhra Pradesh coast) and Gurgaon-Delhi-Meerut (National Capital Region belt).

Chief advantage behind each region's growth

How mineral, market and port advantages shape the pattern

In general, regions rich in minerals (Chota Nagpur) attract heavy, mineral-based industries such as iron and steel, while regions with large markets and good transport (Mumbai-Pune, Gurgaon-Delhi-Meerut) attract more consumer and light industries. Port access (Hooghly, Gujarat, Vishakhapatnam-Guntur) favours industries that import raw material or export finished goods.

Why heavy and consumer industries vary between regions

The spread of industrial areas follows the same locational factors that govern any single plant, but at the scale of a whole region. A region that holds coal, iron ore and other minerals at one place attracts heavy industries, because their raw material is bulky and weight-losing and their finished product is heavy to move; Chota Nagpur, with its coal, iron ore and manganese, is the clearest example, drawing iron and steel and the ancillary engineering works that use steel.

A region with a large, wealthy market, a dense transport network and a big pool of skilled and semi-skilled labour attracts consumer industries, because their finished goods are light, varied and sold directly to people; Gurgaon-Delhi-Meerut, close to the capital region's market, and Mumbai-Pune, with its port, capital and labour, show this pattern.

Port regions such as the Hooghly belt, Gujarat and Vishakhapatnam-Guntur attract industries that handle imported raw material or export finished goods, so they often carry a mixture of heavy and consumer units. Government policy can also shift the balance, because regional policies deliberately set up industries in areas that lack a natural advantage, to promote balanced development.

How and where have the cotton textile and sugar industries developed?

Both are agro-based industries that process raw material grown on the farm, so their first mills grew up close to the growing areas and to good transport.

The cotton textile industry is concentrated in Maharashtra, with mills at Mumbai and Pune, and in Gujarat, with mills at Ahmedabad and Surat.

Mumbai and Ahmedabad combine easy access to locally grown cotton with port facilities, capital, a humid climate suited to spinning, and a long-established skilled workforce; Surat and Pune have grown as the industry has spread to smaller centres with cheaper land and labour.

The sugar industry is concentrated in Maharashtra, with centres at Ahmednagar and Pune, and in Uttar Pradesh, with centres at Muzaffarnagar and Saharanpur.

Because sugarcane is heavy, bulky and loses weight (and sucrose content) quickly after cutting, mills must be sited close to the cane-growing tracts, which explains the western Maharashtra and western Uttar Pradesh clusters.

Both industries illustrate the location rule for agro-based, weight-losing raw material: processing stays close to the farm rather than close to the final market.

Growth and present status of the two industries

Cotton textiles were among the first modern industries to take root in India, beginning at Mumbai and spreading to Ahmedabad, because raw cotton, a port for machinery and cloth, capital and humid spinning weather were all at hand. As land and labour in the old mill cities became costlier, the industry spread to Pune and Surat, which now carry much of the newer capacity.

The industry's present challenge is competition from synthetic fabrics and from cheaper producers elsewhere, which has pushed older mills towards closure while newer, more efficient units survive.

The sugar industry grew out of the cane tracts of western Uttar Pradesh and western Maharashtra, and Maharashtra, with its cooperative mills, grew into one of the two leading producers alongside Uttar Pradesh, partly because cane in the peninsula yields a higher sucrose content and the crushing season is longer.

Its present status depends heavily on the price and supply of cane each season, since the mills must crush the cane soon after it is cut.

How is the iron and steel industry located in India, and how do integrated and mini steel plants differ?

The iron and steel industry is a classic mineral-based, basic industry: it uses bulky, weight-losing raw material (iron ore, coking coal, limestone, manganese) and in turn supplies steel to almost every other manufacturing industry.

Plants are therefore sited close to coal and iron-ore belts, chiefly in the Chota Nagpur region and its margins.

The eight integrated plants studied

The main integrated iron and steel plants studied are: TISCO at Jamshedpur (Jharkhand), the Vishweshvarya Iron and Steel Plant at Bhadravati (Karnataka), the Bhilai Iron and Steel Plant (Chhattisgarh), the Rourkela Iron and Steel Plant (Odisha), the Hindustan Steel Limited Plant at Durgapur (West Bengal), the Bokaro Iron and Steel Plant (Jharkhand), the Salem Iron and Steel Plant (Tamil Nadu) and the Vishakhapatnam Iron and Steel Plant (Andhra Pradesh).

On an outline map, mark Jamshedpur, Bhadravati, Bhilai, Rourkela, Durgapur, Bokaro, Salem and Vishakhapatnam as dots, and shade the Chota Nagpur coal-and-iron-ore belt that supplies most of them.

Integrated plants versus mini steel plants

An integrated steel plant carries out every stage, from converting iron ore into pig iron through to rolling finished steel, within one large works; it needs huge capital and a large, assured supply of raw material, but gains economies of scale and can produce a wide range of steel products cheaply once established.

A mini steel plant is smaller, is usually based on scrap or sponge iron rather than ore, needs much less capital and raw material, and can be sited closer to the market, but it produces a narrower range of steel and cannot match the integrated plant's economies of scale for bulk production.

Growth and present status of iron and steel

The industry began with TISCO at Jamshedpur, sited on the Chota Nagpur mineral belt, and expanded after independence when the Bhilai, Rourkela, Durgapur and Bokaro plants were set up in the same mineral belt or on its margins. Bhadravati, Salem and Vishakhapatnam were sited away from Chota Nagpur, each drawing on its own regional iron ore, power or port advantage.

Today the older integrated works face competition from smaller mini steel plants, which use scrap and sponge iron and can serve local markets at lower capital cost, so the industry now combines a few very large integrated plants with many smaller units.

Where are the petrochemical industries and oil refineries located?

Petrochemical industries use natural chemical minerals, chiefly mineral oil (petroleum), as their raw material, producing synthetic fibre, plastic and other chemical products. The centres studied are UDEX at Koyali and IPCL at Vadodara, both in Gujarat, close to the crude-oil fields and refineries of the region.

Oil refineries process crude petroleum into usable fuels and feedstock for the petrochemical industry. The centres studied are the IOCL refineries at Barauni, Haldia and Digboi, and the HPCL refineries at Mumbai and Vishakhapatnam.

Barauni and Digboi are inland refineries that developed near crude-oil fields of eastern India and Assam, while Haldia, Mumbai and Vishakhapatnam are coastal/port refineries built to process imported crude as well as to export refined products.

These petrochemical and refinery clusters show the same raw-material rule seen in iron and steel: where the raw material is heavy and loses weight (or value) in processing, the plant locates close to its source, whether that source is a crude-oil field or a port that receives imported crude.

Growth and present status of petrochemicals and refining

The petrochemical industry grew out of the refineries, because refining crude oil yields the feedstock from which synthetic fibre and plastic are made; Koyali and Vadodara in Gujarat sit beside the crude-oil fields and refineries of that state, which is why the two petrochemical centres studied are there.

The refineries themselves were built in two waves: inland plants such as Digboi and Barauni near crude-oil fields, and coastal plants such as Haldia, Mumbai and Vishakhapatnam that can process imported crude and export refined products. The present status of the industry therefore depends on the supply of crude oil, whether from domestic fields or from imports through the ports.

What are industrial clusters, and how are they identified?

An industrial cluster is a group of related or linked industries concentrated in one area, drawn together by the agglomeration economies described earlier: a leader industry attracts supplier and ancillary industries nearby, so that all of them share transport links, a skilled labour pool and markets, reducing costs for everyone in the cluster.

Chota Nagpur's iron and steel belt and the Mumbai-Pune textile belt are examples of such clusters, where several linked industries have grown around an original leading industry and its raw-material or market advantage.

Geographers identify such clusters using location indices that measure how far an industry is concentrated in one area compared with the national average, for example by comparing the share of an industry's employment or output in a region with that region's share of total national industrial employment or output; a value well above the national average signals a cluster.

The same factors that explain the growth of a region, market access, raw material, labour, energy, transport and government policy, also explain why particular industries cluster together rather than spreading evenly across the country.

How a location index is worked out

A location index compares a region's share of one industry with that region's share of all industry. If a region holds 10 per cent of the country's total industrial employment but 40 per cent of its iron and steel employment, its index for iron and steel is 40 divided by 10, or 4. A value above 1 means the industry is more concentrated in that region than industry in general, and a value well above 1 signals a cluster; a value near 1 means the industry is spread like industry as a whole.

Worked example 1. A region has 8 per cent of the country's total industrial employment and 32 per cent of its cotton textile employment. Work out its location index for cotton textiles and say what it means.

Answer: Location index = 32 ÷ 8 = 4. The region's share of cotton textile employment is four times its share of all industrial employment, so cotton textiles are strongly concentrated there and the region can be treated as a cotton textile cluster.

Worked example 2. A region has 20 per cent of the country's total industrial employment and 22 per cent of its sugar employment. Work out its location index for sugar and say what it means.

Answer: Location index = 22 ÷ 20 = 1.1. The value is only slightly above 1, so sugar is spread in that region much as industry in general is spread, and the region is not a marked sugar cluster.

What is the tourism industry, and how has it grown?

Definition: Tourism. Tourism is travel undertaken for purposes of recreation rather than business.

Tourism has become the world's single largest tertiary activity, both in total registered jobs and in revenue.

Beyond direct employment, tourism fosters the growth of infrastructure industries, retail trading and craft industries such as souvenir-making, because local people are employed to provide accommodation, meals, transport, entertainment and goods for tourists.

In some regions tourism is seasonal, depending on favourable weather, while other regions attract visitors all the year round.

What attracts tourists to a place?

Climate (warm, sunny weather for beach holidays, or snow cover for winter sports), landscape, history and art, and local culture and economy are the main pulls that draw tourists to a destination.

Most people from colder regions expect warm, sunny weather for beach holidays, which is one main reason for the importance of tourism in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean lands, where the climate offers almost consistently higher temperatures than in other parts of Europe, long hours of sunshine and low rainfall throughout the peak holiday season. People taking winter holidays have specific climatic requirements, either higher temperatures than their own homelands, or snow cover suitable for skiing.

Many people like to spend their holidays in an attractive environment, which often means mountains, lakes, spectacular sea coasts and landscapes not completely altered by man. People also visit ancient or picturesque towns and archaeological sites, and enjoy exploring castles, palaces and churches. Culture and economy attract tourists who want to experience ethnic and local customs, and a region that provides for the needs of tourists at a cheap cost is likely to become very popular.

Major natural and cultural tourist areas in India

India's major natural tourist areas are of three kinds. The beaches and backwaters of the west coast, above all Goa and Kerala, offer warm, sunny winters. The Himalayan hill stations and valleys, such as Shimla, Manali, Mussoorie, Darjeeling, Kashmir and Ladakh, offer cool summers, snow and trekking.

The national parks, such as Jim Corbett, Kaziranga, Ranthambore and the Sundarbans, draw visitors to see wildlife.

Its major cultural tourist areas are its historic cities and monuments, above all the Golden Triangle of Delhi, Agra (the Taj Mahal) and Jaipur, the forts and palaces of Rajasthan, the temple towns of the south such as Madurai and Tirupati, the caves of Ajanta and Ellora, and the great centres of pilgrimage, such as Varanasi, Haridwar, Vaishno Devi, Amritsar and Bodh Gaya.

Their special feature is that history, art and religion, rather than climate, bring the visitors.

These areas differ in their level of development. The Golden Triangle, Goa, Kerala and the big hill stations have long had airports, hotels, roads and other tourist services, while the north-eastern states, Ladakh and many national parks are less developed, with fewer transport links and a short season, and depend on seasonal visitors.

Home-stay has emerged as a profitable business in this field, such as heritage homes in Goa and in Madikeri and Coorg in Karnataka.

Tourist flows

Tourist flows are the movements of visitors from the places where they live to the places they visit.

The main flows run from the colder, wealthier regions of Europe and North America towards the warmer coasts of Southern Europe and the Mediterranean lands, and towards winter sports regions in the mountains.

Flows are also drawn towards scenic landscapes, national parks and historic towns, and towards regions that offer tourist services at a cheap cost.

Because the vacation period depends on favourable weather in many regions, these flows are seasonal, rising in the peak holiday season and falling outside it, though some regions attract visitors all the year round.

In India, domestic tourists far outnumber foreign ones, and a large share of domestic travel is pilgrimage. Domestic flows are seasonal: in summer they run from the hot plains to the hill stations, and in winter towards the beaches of Goa and Kerala and the deserts and forts of Rajasthan. Foreign tourists, who come mainly from Bangladesh, the United States and the United Kingdom, arrive chiefly through the airports of Delhi and Mumbai and flow along the Golden Triangle, to Goa and Kerala and to the Himalayas, mostly in the cooler months from October to March.

Medical tourism adds a further flow, of patients travelling to world-class hospitals in metropolitan cities; about 55,000 patients from the USA visited India for treatment in 2005.

Medical tourism

India has also become a leading destination for medical tourism, where medical treatment is combined with international tourism, bringing foreign patients to world-class hospitals in metropolitan cities; countries such as Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia are described as fast-emerging competitors in this field.

Impact of tourism and eco-tourism measures

Tourism brings both benefits and costs. Its positive impact includes employment generation, growth of local infrastructure and retail, foreign exchange earnings and support for craft and heritage industries.

Its negative impact can include pressure on local water, land and waste-disposal systems, damage to fragile natural sites from overcrowding, and the displacement of local economic activity by tourist-oriented trade.

Problems of tourism include seasonal, unstable employment, strain on local resources and loss of cultural authenticity at crowded destinations.

Measures recommended for developing eco-tourism include limiting visitor numbers at fragile natural sites, involving local communities in planning and benefit-sharing, improving waste management and water supply at tourist centres, and encouraging home-stay and heritage-home accommodation of the kind already seen in Goa and in Madikeri and Coorg in Karnataka, which keeps tourism income within the local economy while reducing pressure on new construction.

Case study: Mumbai-Pune, a cotton textile industrial region

The Mumbai-Pune belt is one of the major industrial regions and illustrates how several locational factors reinforce one another around a single leading industry, cotton textiles.

Mumbai grew around a cotton-growing hinterland, a natural harbour port that gave easy import of machinery and export of finished cloth, and a humid coastal climate that suited yarn spinning by keeping threads from snapping. Access to capital and a large pool of labour supported the growth of mills at Mumbai, and the industry later spread to Pune as land and labour in Mumbai became costlier.

Gujarat's Ahmedabad and Surat developed on the same locational logic, combining nearby cotton with port facilities, capital and skilled workers, so that Maharashtra (Mumbai and Pune) and Gujarat (Ahmedabad and Surat) together form the two main centres of the cotton textile industry.

The case shows the general rule for agro-based, weight-losing raw material at work: because raw cotton is bulky to transport, the first mills located close to the cotton-growing tracts and to a port, and agglomeration economies then drew further mills, workshops and labour to the same belt, turning an initial advantage into a lasting industrial region.

Case study: Jamshedpur, TISCO and the Chota Nagpur iron and steel belt

TISCO at Jamshedpur in Jharkhand is the oldest of the integrated iron and steel plants studied, and its location shows how a basic, mineral-based industry is tied to its raw material.

Jamshedpur lies within reach of the Chota Nagpur mineral belt, which supplies the coal, iron ore and manganese that an integrated plant needs in large, assured quantities. Because iron ore and coal are heavy and lose weight in processing, siting the plant near the mineral belt, rather than near a distant market, kept transport costs down for the bulky raw material side of production.

As an integrated steel plant, TISCO carries out every stage, from converting iron ore into pig iron through to rolling finished steel, within one large works. This needs huge capital and a continuous, large supply of raw material, but once established it gains economies of scale and can turn out a wide range of steel products cheaply, supplying machines and tools used across other manufacturing industries.

The success of TISCO also helped draw other integrated plants, Bhadravati, Bhilai, Rourkela, Durgapur, Bokaro, Salem and Vishakhapatnam, into India's wider iron and steel industry, several locating close to their own regional mineral sources rather than all within Chota Nagpur, which remains the country's chief iron and steel cluster.

Going beyond the syllabus

These ideas extend the unit and are not needed for the questions on it.

What is the high-technology industry?

A related idea worth knowing is the high-technology industry: the latest generation of manufacturing based on intensive research and development, where professional (white-collar) staff outnumber production (blue-collar) workers, and the landscape is marked by low, dispersed office-plant-lab buildings rather than massive factories.

Highly concentrated, self-sustained high-tech clusters are called technopolies, of which Silicon Valley near San Francisco and Silicon Forest near Seattle are examples; whether some technopolies are developing in India too is a question the chapter leaves open.

This helps explain why some modern industrial growth no longer follows the older raw-material and energy rules as closely as iron and steel or cotton textiles once did. A traditional basic industry such as iron and steel still has to sit beside its coal and iron-ore belt because its raw material is heavy and loses weight in processing, but a high-tech plant depends far more on research staff, skilled scientists and good communication links than on any local mineral, so it can locate in a pleasant business park on the edge of a city rather than beside a mine.

Seen this way, the industrial pattern studied for India, mineral-based clusters on the Chota Nagpur belt, agro-based clusters near cotton and cane tracts, and footloose units scattered along good roads, represents one stage in a longer story that, in other parts of the world, has gone on to produce dispersed, research-driven technopolies as a further kind of industrial region.

Glossary

• Footloose industry — an industry not tied to a specific raw material, which can locate almost anywhere with good road access, using bought-in components and small labour.
• Basic (key) industry — an industry whose products are used as raw material by other industries, such as iron and steel.
• Consumer goods industry — an industry whose products are consumed directly by people, such as biscuits or textiles.
• Agglomeration economies — the cost savings an industry gains from locating near a leader industry and other linked industries.
• Integrated steel plant — a large steel works carrying out every stage of production, from ore to finished steel, within one site.
• Mini steel plant — a smaller steel plant, usually based on scrap or sponge iron, needing less capital and a smaller raw-material base.
• Petrochemical industry — an industry using petroleum (mineral oil) to manufacture synthetic fibre, plastic and other chemical products.
• Oil refinery — a plant that processes crude petroleum into fuels and feedstock for other industries.
• Industrial cluster — a group of linked industries concentrated in one area, sharing transport, labour and market advantages.
• Location index — a measure comparing a region's share of one industry with its share of all industry, used to identify clusters.
• Tourism — travel undertaken for recreation rather than business.
• Tourist flows — the movements of visitors from the places where they live to the places they visit.
• Medical tourism — medical treatment combined with international tourism travel.
• Eco-tourism — tourism managed to protect the natural environment and share benefits with the local community.
• Market (in industry) — people who both demand a good and have the purchasing power to buy it.

Common errors and misconceptions

• Misconception: cotton textiles and sugar are footloose industries. Correct: they are agro-based industries tied to their weight-losing, perishable raw material, and must locate close to the growing area.
• Misconception: an integrated steel plant and a mini steel plant differ only in size. Correct: they differ mainly in raw material (ore versus scrap/sponge iron), capital needed and the range of products made.
• Misconception: a basic industry and a consumer goods industry mean the same thing. Correct: a basic industry supplies raw material to other industries, while a consumer goods industry supplies finished products directly to people.
• Misconception: all petrochemical and oil-refinery centres are in the same state. Correct: the petrochemical centres studied (Koyali, Vadodara) are in Gujarat, while the refineries studied span Bihar, West Bengal, Assam, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.
• Misconception: tourism has only positive effects on the economy. Correct: alongside employment and infrastructure growth, tourism can strain local resources, cause seasonal instability and damage fragile natural sites.
• Misconception: industrial location depends only on raw material. Correct: market, labour, energy, transport, government policy and agglomeration economies all operate together.
• Misconception: a location index above 1 always means a strong cluster. Correct: a value only slightly above 1 shows the industry is spread much like industry in general; a value well above 1 signals a cluster.

Exam-style questions with model answers

Q1. Name the state in which each of these iron and steel plants is located: Rourkela, Durgapur, Bhadravati and Salem. [1 mark]

1. Rourkela is in Odisha and Durgapur is in West Bengal.
2. Bhadravati is in Karnataka and Salem is in Tamil Nadu.

Q2. Define a footloose industry and state the one locational factor that matters most for it. [2 marks]

1. A footloose industry is one that is not dependent on any specific raw material, weight losing or otherwise, and largely depends on component parts that can be obtained anywhere.
2. It produces in small quantity, employs a small labour force and is generally not polluting, so the important factor in its location is accessibility by road network.

Q3. A region has 5 per cent of the country's total industrial employment and 25 per cent of its iron and steel employment. Calculate its location index for iron and steel and state what the value shows. [2 marks]

1. Location index = 25 ÷ 5 = 5.
2. The region's share of iron and steel employment is five times its share of all industrial employment, so iron and steel are strongly concentrated there and the region is a marked iron and steel cluster.

Q4. Distinguish between an integrated steel plant and a mini steel plant, giving one advantage and one disadvantage of each. [4 marks]

1. An integrated plant carries out every stage from ore to finished steel at one site, while a mini plant is usually based on scrap or sponge iron and carries out fewer stages.
2. Advantage of an integrated plant: it gains economies of scale and can produce a wide range of steel products once established.
3. Disadvantage of an integrated plant: it needs huge capital and an assured, large raw-material supply.
4. Advantage of a mini plant: it needs much less capital and raw material and can be sited closer to the market; its disadvantage is a narrower product range and smaller output.

Q5. Explain why heavy industries are concentrated in the Chota Nagpur region while consumer industries are more numerous around Mumbai-Pune and Gurgaon-Delhi-Meerut. [4 marks]

1. Heavy industries use bulky, weight-losing raw material, so they locate close to the mineral source; Chota Nagpur holds coal, iron ore and manganese, which drew iron and steel plants and the engineering works that use steel.
2. Consumer industries make light, varied goods sold directly to people, so they need a large market, a dense transport network and a big pool of skilled and semi-skilled labour.
3. Mumbai-Pune offers a port, capital, a cotton hinterland and labour, while Gurgaon-Delhi-Meerut lies close to the large capital-region market with a dense road and rail network.
4. Port regions such as the Hooghly belt, Gujarat and Vishakhapatnam-Guntur carry a mixture of both, because they handle imported raw material and export finished goods.

Q6. Explain the factors responsible for the location of the sugar industry in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, and state how the industry has grown there. [4 marks]

1. Sugarcane is heavy, bulky and loses weight and sucrose content quickly after cutting, so mills must be sited close to the cane-growing tracts.
2. This explains the clusters at Ahmednagar and Pune in Maharashtra and at Muzaffarnagar and Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh.
3. The industry grew out of these cane tracts, and Maharashtra, with its cooperative mills, grew into one of the two leading producers alongside Uttar Pradesh, partly because cane in the peninsula yields a higher sucrose content and the crushing season is longer.
4. Its present status depends heavily on the price and supply of cane each season, since the mills must crush the cane soon after it is cut.

Q7. Explain the main tourist flows in India and the factors that direct them. [4 marks]

1. Tourist flows are the movements of visitors from the places where they live to the places they visit; in India domestic tourists far outnumber foreign ones, and much domestic travel is pilgrimage.
2. Climate directs the seasonal flows: from the hot plains to the hill stations in summer, and to the beaches of Goa and Kerala and to Rajasthan in winter.
3. Foreign tourists, mainly from Bangladesh, the United States and the United Kingdom, enter through Delhi and Mumbai and follow the Golden Triangle, Goa, Kerala and the Himalayas, mostly between October and March.
4. Accessibility and services, such as airports, hotels and roads, and the cost of a holiday decide which places receive the largest flows; less accessible areas such as the north-east receive few visitors.

Q8. "Tourism brings both benefits and costs to the environment and the local economy." Evaluate this statement and suggest two measures for developing eco-tourism. [7 marks]

1. Tourism creates direct employment in accommodation, meals, transport, entertainment and special shops serving tourists, which supports local livelihoods.
2. It fosters the growth of infrastructure industries, retail trading and craft industries such as souvenir-making, and it earns foreign exchange for the country.
3. Home-stay accommodation, such as heritage homes in Goa and in Madikeri and Coorg in Karnataka, keeps tourist income within the local community.
4. Against these benefits, heavy visitor flows can strain local water, land and waste-disposal systems.
5. Fragile natural sites can be damaged by overcrowding, and local economic activity can be displaced by tourist-oriented trade.
6. Employment can remain seasonal and unstable where tourism depends on favourable weather, and crowded destinations can lose cultural authenticity.
7. Measures for eco-tourism: limiting visitor numbers at fragile natural sites and involving local communities in planning and benefit-sharing, alongside improving waste management and water supply at tourist centres and encouraging home-stay and heritage-home accommodation, help balance tourism growth with environmental protection.

Key takeaways

• Industrial location is decided jointly by market, raw material, labour, energy, transport and government policy, with agglomeration economies drawing linked industries together.
• Footloose industries are not tied to a specific raw material and need only good road access, unlike basic industries that supply raw material to other industries.
• India's seven major industrial regions, Mumbai-Pune, Hooghly, Bengaluru-Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Chota Nagpur, Vishakhapatnam-Guntur and Gurgaon-Delhi-Meerut, each grew around a distinct local advantage.
• Cotton textiles are concentrated in Maharashtra (Mumbai, Pune) and Gujarat (Ahmedabad, Surat); sugar in Maharashtra (Ahmednagar, Pune) and Uttar Pradesh (Muzaffarnagar, Saharanpur).
• Iron and steel plants are sited chiefly on the Chota Nagpur mineral belt (Jamshedpur, Bhilai, Rourkela, Durgapur, Bokaro), with Bhadravati, Salem and Vishakhapatnam located near their own regional mineral or market advantages.
• Integrated steel plants carry out all production stages with large capital, while mini steel plants use scrap or sponge iron with less capital and a narrower output.
• Petrochemical centres (Koyali, Vadodara) and oil refineries (Barauni, Haldia, Digboi, Mumbai, Vishakhapatnam) locate near crude-oil fields or at ports handling imported crude.
• A location index compares a region's share of one industry with its share of all industry; a value well above 1 signals an industrial cluster.
• Tourism is the world's largest tertiary activity by jobs and revenue, and brings both economic benefits and environmental and social costs that eco-tourism measures try to balance.

Test yourself

What is the key locational factor for a footloose industry?

Accessibility by road network, since it depends on component parts obtainable anywhere rather than a fixed local raw material.

Which two states are the main centres of the sugar industry studied?

Maharashtra (Ahmednagar and Pune) and Uttar Pradesh (Muzaffarnagar and Saharanpur).

Name the petrochemical centres studied and the state they are in.

UDEX at Koyali and IPCL at Vadodara, both in Gujarat.

Why do iron and steel plants locate close to the Chota Nagpur belt?

Because they use bulky, weight-losing raw material, coal and iron ore, which this mineral belt supplies cheaply nearby.

What distinguishes an integrated steel plant from a mini steel plant?

An integrated plant does every stage from ore to finished steel with large capital, while a mini plant uses scrap or sponge iron with less capital.

What share of world GDP comes from tourism revenue?

40 per cent of total world GDP, making tourism the world's single largest tertiary activity by revenue.

What is a tourist flow?

The movement of visitors from the places where they live to the places they visit, such as flows from colder regions towards warm coasts and winter sports areas.

Give one example of an eco-tourism measure mentioned for India.

Promoting home-stay and heritage-home accommodation, as seen in Goa and in Madikeri and Coorg in Karnataka, keeping tourist income within the local economy.