NDA (I) 2017 General Ability Test · Question 140 of 149

Correct — C, the code 4 3 2 1. Gypsum goes with Rajasthan, item 4, which the Indian Bureau of Mines credits with 81 per cent of the country's gypsum resources. Nickel goes with Odisha, item 1, which holds about 92 per cent of India's nickel resources in the lateritic deposits of the Sukinda valley. Fluorspar goes with Gujarat, item 2 — Gujarat accounts for 66 per cent of India's fluorite reserves and resources, in the Ambadungar field of Chhota Udepur district. That leaves graphite with Arunachal Pradesh, item 3, which the same inventory credits with 37 per cent of India's graphite resources, the largest share of any State.

• (a)1 3 2 4 — Graphite and fluorspar are placed correctly, but gypsum and nickel are exchanged. Gypsum in India is overwhelmingly Rajasthan's mineral, and nickel is Odisha's — this option reverses the two strongest pairings in the list.
• (b)1 2 3 4 — It moves graphite to Gujarat and fluorspar to Arunachal Pradesh as well as swapping gypsum and nickel. Gujarat's mineral in this list is fluorspar, from the Ambadungar carbonatite field.
• (d)4 2 3 1 — Gypsum and nickel are right, but graphite and fluorspar are interchanged. Arunachal Pradesh leads on graphite resources and Gujarat on fluorite, not the other way round.

India's mineral resources are concentrated rather than spread: for most minerals one or two States hold the bulk of the reserves. Gypsum feeds cement and plaster of Paris; graphite goes into refractories, crucibles and electrodes; fluorspar is the flux of steelmaking and the source of hydrofluoric acid; nickel is an alloying metal for stainless steel. Each has its own map.

A caution that applies to every 'mineral to State' question. Resources are not the same thing as production, and the two can point to different States. Graphite is exactly that case: Arunachal Pradesh holds the largest share of the resources, but Odisha and Jharkhand between them do almost all of the mining. Nickel is a second case — Odisha holds 92 per cent of the resources, yet India produces no primary nickel and meets its demand through imports. Indian textbooks and the NDA key both use the resource reading, so learn the resource ranking and keep the production caveat in mind for statement-based items.

• Rajasthan accounts for about 81 per cent of India's gypsum resources, with Jammu and Kashmir 14 per cent.
• Gujarat holds 66 per cent of India's fluorite reserves and resources, chiefly at Ambadungar in Chhota Udepur district.
• Arunachal Pradesh accounts for 37 per cent of India's graphite resources, followed by Jammu and Kashmir at 32 per cent.
• Odisha holds about 92 per cent of India's nickel resources, in the lateritic deposits of the Sukinda valley in Jajpur district.
• The figures come from the National Mineral Inventory as on 1 April 2015, the inventory current at the time of this examination.

• Reading 'deposit' as 'output' — graphite and nickel both split on that distinction.
• Assuming a north-eastern State cannot lead on a mineral; Arunachal Pradesh tops the graphite resource table.
• Confusing fluorspar, a non-metallic flux mineral, with a metallic ore.

Mineral-to-State matches recur in almost every NDA paper, usually with two easy pairings and two that must be settled by elimination.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Ambadungar field in Gujarat is associated with which mineral?

  • (a)Fluorspar
  • (b)Manganese
  • (c)Mica
  • (d)Chromite

  Answer(a) Fluorspar — Gujarat holds about two-thirds of India's fluorite resources, mostly from this field.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Sukinda valley in Odisha is known for deposits of

  • (a)Gypsum
  • (b)Nickel and chromite
  • (c)Gold
  • (d)Rock salt

  Answer(b) Nickel and chromite — the lateritic Sukinda belt holds the bulk of India's nickel resources.