Which one of the following centres is NOT known for iron and steel industry ?
- (a)Bhadravati
- (b)Salem
- (c)Vishakhapatnam
- (d)Renukoot
Correct — D, Renukoot. Renukoot, in Sonbhadra district of Uttar Pradesh, is an aluminium town, not a steel town. It grew around the Hindalco smelter, and it is there for one reason above all others — electric power. Aluminium smelting consumes enormous quantities of electricity, and the company built its own Renusagar power plant in the coal- and hydro-rich Singrauli belt to supply it. UPSC has tested exactly this logic, asking why the Renukoot aluminium factory owes its site to what it does, and marking the answer as an abundant supply of power. The other three names on the list are all genuine iron and steel centres.
- (a)Bhadravati — Bhadravati in Karnataka is the home of the Visvesvaraya Iron and Steel plant, one of India's oldest steel works. It is a standard example in Indian geography precisely because it lacks local coal and had to rely on hydroelectric power and charcoal instead.
- (b)Salem — Salem in Tamil Nadu is the site of the Salem Steel Plant, a premier producer of stainless steel in India — a fact UPSC certified in a 2005 prelims item.
- (c)Vishakhapatnam — Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh houses the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, run by Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited — India's first shore-based integrated steel plant, sited to use the port.
Heavy industry locates itself where its heaviest input is cheapest to obtain. Iron and steel is a weight-losing industry, so its plants cluster near coal and iron ore or, when the ore is imported or the market is coastal, near a port. Aluminium is different: bauxite refining follows the ore, but smelting follows electricity, because turning alumina into metal is one of the most power-hungry industrial processes there is. That single distinction sorts the whole map — Korba, Hirakud, Angul and Renukoot are aluminium places built beside power, while Bhilai, Rourkela, Bokaro and Durgapur are steel places built beside coal and ore.
Odd-one-out items on industrial centres are best solved by asking what each town is famous for rather than by trying to remember a list of steel plants. Three of the four here are unambiguous steel names that recur across syllabuses, and Renukoot is unambiguous in the other direction. Keep the aluminium map separate in your notes: refineries at Muri and Lohardaga in Jharkhand, Belagavi in Karnataka, and Damanjodi and Lanjigarh in Odisha follow the bauxite; smelters at Renukoot in Uttar Pradesh, Hirakud, Angul and Jharsuguda in Odisha and Korba in Chhattisgarh follow the electricity. A related caution for the present day: plant ownership in this sector has changed hands repeatedly since 2018 — several of these units have been merged, sold or restructured — so treat questions about who owns a plant as far more perishable than questions about where it is and why.
- Renukoot in Sonbhadra district, Uttar Pradesh, is an aluminium centre, built around a smelter with its own captive power supply at Renusagar.
- Bhadravati in Karnataka hosts the Visvesvaraya Iron and Steel plant; Salem in Tamil Nadu produces stainless steel; Visakhapatnam has a shore-based integrated steel plant.
- Aluminium smelting is chosen for cheap power; alumina refining is chosen for nearness to bauxite.
- Iron and steel is a weight-losing industry, so its plants sit near coal and ore or near a port.
- Assuming any large industrial town must be a steel town.
- Confusing the aluminium map with the steel map, since both cluster in the eastern mineral belt.
- Memorising plant ownership, which changes, instead of plant location and its logic, which does not.
NDA sets a city-and-industry mismatch every few papers, sometimes as this odd-one-out form and sometimes as a four-pair matching list.
HINDALCO, an aluminium factory located at Renukoot owes its site basically to
- (a) proximity of raw materials
- (b) abundant supply of power
- (c) efficient transport network
- (d) proximity to the market
Answer(b) abundant supply of power
UPSC names Renukoot as an aluminium centre outright and explains why it is one — the single most direct confirmation of this item's answer.
Local supply of coal is not available to
- (a) TISCO, Jamshedpur
- (b) VISL, Bhadravati
- (c) HSL, Durgapur
- (d) HSL, Bhilai
Answer(b) VISL, Bhadravati
It confirms Bhadravati as an iron and steel centre while making the location point of this card — the plant is famous for having had to work without local coal.
Which one of the following pairs of city and industry is NOT correctly matched ?
- (a) Saharanpur : Paper industry
- (b) Chanderi : Cotton textile industry
- (c) Bhadohi : Carpet industry
- (d) Raniganj : Iron and steel industry
Answer(d) Raniganj : Iron and steel industry
The same mismatch design five years later, and again the false pair is the one that hangs 'iron and steel' on a town famous for something else.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Renukoot in Uttar Pradesh is best known for which industry?
- (a)Iron and steel
- (b)Aluminium
- (c)Cotton textiles
- (d)Paper
Answer(b) Aluminium — the smelter there was sited for its access to abundant electric power.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Aluminium smelters in India are located chiefly with reference to
- (a)proximity to the market
- (b)availability of cheap and abundant electric power
- (c)availability of skilled labour
- (d)nearness to a seaport
Answer(b) availability of cheap and abundant electric power — smelting is extremely electricity-intensive.