Which of the following is an example of major industrial region of India?
- (a)Bhojpur-Munger
- (b)Chota Nagpur region
- (c)Bilaspur-Korba
- (d)Jaipur- Ajmer
Answer
Why
Correct — B. The Chota Nagpur region — Jharkhand with the adjoining parts of northern Odisha and western West Bengal — sits on Damodar valley coal and the Singhbhum-Odisha iron ore belt.
Raw material and power on the spot built the iron and steel plants at Jamshedpur, Bokaro, Durgapur and Rourkela, with heavy engineering clustered around them.
In the standard classification of India's industrial areas it is a major industrial region, while the three other places offered are listed among the minor ones. So option (b).
Why the others are wrong
- (a)Bhojpur-Munger — Bhojpur-Munger in Bihar appears in the textbook list of minor industrial regions. It rests on small-scale and agro-based units, not on the heavy metallurgical base that defines a major region.
- (c)Bilaspur-Korba — Bilaspur-Korba in Chhattisgarh is also a minor industrial region. Korba's coal and thermal power matter nationally, but the industrial spread around them is narrow.
- (d)Jaipur- Ajmer — Jaipur-Ajmer in Rajasthan is another of the minor industrial regions, resting on light and consumer industry rather than a coal-and-ore complex.
Concept
Textbook geography sorts India's industry by scale into major industrial regions, minor industrial regions and industrial districts.
What lifts a region into the first tier is a concentration of large plants, raw material and power available locally, and a chain of downstream industry feeding off them.
Chotanagpur qualifies on every count, which is why it is listed with Mumbai-Pune, Hugli, the Gujarat region and Gurgaon-Delhi-Meerut. The three distractors are real industrial areas too. The question is only about which tier they occupy.
Key facts
- The Chotanagpur industrial region spreads across Jharkhand, northern Odisha and western West Bengal.
- Its industry rests on Damodar valley coal and iron ore from the Singhbhum-Odisha belt.
- Bhojpur-Munger, Bilaspur-Korba and Jaipur-Ajmer all appear in the textbook list of minor industrial regions.
- Mumbai-Pune, Hugli, the Gujarat region and Gurgaon-Delhi-Meerut are among the major industrial regions.
Study next
Common traps
- Assuming any place with one famous plant is a major industrial region.
- Mistaking Korba's national importance in power generation for a broad industrial base.
Industrial geography also arrives as company and location questions, such as the oldest iron and steel company at 12 Sep 2024, 09:00, GA Q.24, whose keyed answer, TISCO at Jamshedpur, stands inside this very region.
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