BPSC 71st CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 50 of 150

Correct — A, 1. Only the first statement survives, and all three can be settled from a single source. Statement 1: the Economic Survey 2024-25 says at page 194 of its Industry chapter that about 87 per cent of the cement industry is concentrated in Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Meghalaya and West Bengal — thirteen States, among which the three named in the question all appear. The question's wording is what saves it: it says 'a few major states like Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh', and 'like' introduces examples rather than a closed list, so naming three of the thirteen does not make the sentence false. That is the source the Commission itself cited when disposing of objections, and it treated statement 1 as correct. Statement 2 is wrong: India is the second largest cement producer in the world, behind China, which alone accounts for roughly half of global output — the Commission said so in as many words. Statement 3 is wrong twice over. The Survey's own sentence is that most of the cement plants in India are located in proximity to the raw material source, and the underlying economics forces that result: roughly one and a half tonnes of limestone go into every tonne of cement, so hauling the stone to a distant plant costs more than hauling the cement to a distant market. Nor is the industry export-organised — Indian cement is overwhelmingly consumed at home, and the Survey records that installed capacity is adequate for domestic demand. Name the edition when you quote the concentration figure, because it moves: the Economic Survey 2025-26 restates the same concentration as about 85 per cent across eleven States, with capacity around 690 million tonnes and production around 453 million tonnes in FY25. This question is judged on the 2024-25 Survey, the edition in print on exam day.

• (b)2 — Statement 2 claims India is the largest cement producer in the world. It is the second largest, behind China, which alone produces roughly half the world's cement — and the Economic Survey states that ranking in exactly those words, as did the Commission when it rejected objections to this question. This is the highest-yield habit in the whole of industry geography: an unqualified 'largest in the world' about India is far more often a planted falsifier than a fact, and the same 'second, after China' answer holds for crude steel and for coal production as well.
• (c)1 and 3 — Statement 1 is right but statement 3 is not, so the pairing fails. Cement is the textbook weight-losing industry: about one and a half tonnes of limestone yield one tonne of cement, so the least-cost site is the quarry, and the Economic Survey records that most Indian plants sit in proximity to their raw material. What makes this distractor tempting is a real feature of the industry that the statement misdescribes — integrated plants must be at the limestone, but grinding units, which take in the much lighter clinker, genuinely can be built near markets, and the Survey counts 128 of them against 159 integrated plants. Market-facing grinding is not the same as port-facing export orientation, and India's cement is not an export industry.
• (d)More than one of the above — For this to hold, two of the printed codes would have to be correct, which is impossible once statements 2 and 3 have both failed — every remaining code except (a) contains one of them. Option (b) rests entirely on statement 2 and option (c) rests half on statement 3, so neither can stand alongside (a). BPSC does make this fourth option the key elsewhere on the paper, so it deserves the check rather than a reflex dismissal, but here the elimination is clean.

Cement is the standard illustration of Alfred Weber's least-cost theory of industrial location. Weber's material index is the weight of localised raw material divided by the weight of the finished product; where that index is greater than one the industry is 'weight-losing' and the plant is pulled towards the raw material, and where it is less than one the industry is pulled towards the market. Cement's index is comfortably above one — roughly one and a half tonnes of limestone are calcined and ground into a tonne of cement, and the carbon dioxide driven off in the kiln literally leaves as gas — so the plant goes to the quarry. That single principle explains India's cement map: production follows the limestone of the Vindhyan and Cuddapah basins through Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka, rather than following the coastline. The industry is also split into two kinds of unit, and knowing the split prevents a common error. Integrated plants quarry limestone, burn it into clinker in a rotary kiln and grind the clinker with gypsum into cement; standalone grinding units buy clinker in and grind it, and because clinker is far lighter and more transportable than limestone, those units can be sited near consuming markets. So a cement industry can be quarry-oriented at the kiln and market-oriented at the grinder at the same time — which is precisely the ambiguity a well-made statement-set question exploits.

Three moves settle this in under a minute. First, audit the superlative. Statement 2 says 'largest producer in the world', and unqualified world-firsts claimed for India in heavy industry are usually planted — for cement, crude steel and coal alike the honest answer is second, behind China. Killing statement 2 immediately kills option (b). Second, apply the raw-material logic. Any claim that a weight-losing industry sits far from its input and near a port should read as wrong on sight, and statement 3 makes exactly that claim; killing it removes option (c). Third — and this is the step candidates skip — read statement 1's qualifier rather than its number. The instinctive objection is that the Economic Survey attaches 87 per cent to thirteen States, not to the three printed, so the statement must be an over-claim. But the statement says 'a few major states LIKE Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh', and all three of those are on the Survey's list; 'like' introduces examples, so the sentence is accurate as written. That distinction between an illustrative list and an exhaustive one is the single discriminating idea in this question, and it recurs across the paper. One further discipline: whenever you quote the 87 per cent, name the Survey. The Economic Survey 2025-26 restates the concentration as about 85 per cent across eleven States, so a student revising from the newer edition and a student revising from the 2024-25 edition will carry different numbers for the same claim, and only the older one is what this paper was set and marked against.

• India is the second largest cement producer in the world, after China — Economic Survey 2024-25, Chapter 7 on Industry, page 194, which is the edition this question was set and marked against.
• As recorded in that Survey, the industry comprised 159 integrated large cement plants, 128 grinding units, five clinkerisation units and 62 mini cement plants, with installed capacity of about 639 million tonnes and production of about 427 million tonnes in FY24.
• About 87 per cent of the industry is concentrated in thirteen States — Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Meghalaya and West Bengal. Bihar is not among them, and the Survey's sentence is that most Indian cement plants are located in proximity to the raw material source.
• The figure has since been restated: the Economic Survey 2025-26 puts the concentration at about 85 per cent across eleven States, with 160 integrated large plants, 130 grinding units, 62 mini plants, capacity of about 690 million tonnes and production of about 453 million tonnes in FY25. Quote the edition with the number.
• Domestic cement consumption is around 290 kg per capita in India against a global average of about 540 kg per capita, and installed capacity is adequate for domestic demand — which is why an export-driven, port-side location pattern was never going to be the answer. Cement is also one of the Eight Core Industries whose index feeds the Index of Industrial Production.

• Accepting 'largest in the world' at face value. India is second in cement, and the same second-after-China pattern holds for crude steel and coal.
• Assuming a large industry must be coastal and export-facing. India's cement is largely consumed domestically and its integrated plants are quarry-side; only grinding units are market-facing.
• Reading '87% in a few major states like …' as an exhaustive list of three. The Economic Survey attaches the figure to thirteen States and the word 'like' makes the three illustrative, which is exactly why statement 1 stands.
• Quoting the concentration figure without its edition. The 2024-25 Survey says 87 per cent across thirteen States; the 2025-26 Survey says about 85 per cent across eleven.

BPSC builds industry questions as three free-standing statements in which one superlative and one locational claim are planted as falsifiers, and it lifts the surviving statement almost verbatim from the current Economic Survey — so the chapter on Industry is worth reading for its sentences, not just its tables, and the edition in print on exam day is the one that governs. UPSC rarely asks where an industry is concentrated. It comes at the same industry through chemistry or through statistics instead: what limestone becomes in the kiln and why that makes cement a major emitter, or which industries sit inside the Eight Core Industries basket. Learn the Survey's sentences for BPSC and the process plus the statistical classification for UPSC.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The location of cement plants in India close to limestone deposits is best explained by which one of the following?

  • (a)Cement is a weight-gaining industry
  • (b)Cement is a weight-losing industry in which the raw material weighs far more than the finished product
  • (c)Cement plants require large volumes of imported coking coal
  • (d)Cement is a footloose industry unaffected by transport costs

  Answer(b) Cement is a weight-losing industry in which the raw material weighs far more than the finished product — roughly one and a half tonnes of limestone yield a tonne of cement, giving a material index above one, so in Weber's terms the plant is pulled to the quarry.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  As stated in the Economic Survey, India's rank among cement producers of the world and the country ahead of it are

  • (a)first; no country ahead
  • (b)second; China
  • (c)second; the United States
  • (d)third; China and Vietnam

  Answer(b) second; China — the Economic Survey describes India as the second largest cement producer in the world after China, which alone accounts for roughly half of global output.