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Industries UPSC Notes Geography

Vanshika21 Aug 20263 min read
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Comprehensive Industries Geography Notes for UPSC covering different industries, cotton, jute, sugar, food, iron steel, automobile, etc. industries with PYQs, and regularly updated exam-oriented study material.

Industrial Location Factors

For maximum profit making there are two methods

  • Least Cost Approach
    • Input cost is minimum and low profit margin
    • Aims to minimize transportation cost, labour cost and infrastructure cost.
  • High Revenue Approach
    • High input cost and profit margin is also high

Different Industries

  • Agro based industries
    • Cotton Industry
    • Jute Industry
    • Sugar Industry
    • Food Processing / Agro based Industry
  • Infrastructural Industry
    • Iron Steel Industry
    • Aluminium Industry
    • Automobile Industry
    • Cement Industry
  • Chemical Industries
    • Oil Refineries and based Industry
    • Petro-chemical Industry
    • Pharma Industry

Cotton Industry

India has a complete cotton textile value chain, from cotton cultivation and ginning to spinning, weaving, processing and garment manufacturing. Cotton is specially important because its supports about 6 million cotton farmers and 40-50 million people in related activities. India has the world's largest area under cotton cultivation, while around 62% of cotton production in rainfed area, making the industry highly dependent on monsoon conditions.

Factors Responsible for the Location of Cotton Textile Industry

  • Raw Material
    • Proximity to cotton growing regions reduces transportation cost.
    • Availability of different varieties- Short, medium and long staple cotton.
    • Major cotton belts are Gujrat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka.
  • Climate
    • Humid climate with high temperature with at least 200 days as frost free are essential.
    • This reason historically encouraged concentration of cotton industry in Mumbai and Ahmedabad.
  • Water Availability
    • Large quantities of water are required for bleaching, dyeing, printing and processing.
    • Rivers reservoirs and reliable water supply favours textile clusters.
  • Labour
    • Availability of skilled and semi-skilled workers has encouraged clusters around Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Surat, Tirupur and Coimbatore.
  • Power
    • Reliable and inexpensive electricity is essential for modern spinning and weaving.
    • Cheap hydroelectric power helped the growth of the textile industry in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Naidu.
  • Market
    • Huge domestic market especially urban markets such as Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Kolkata and Bengaluru encourage downstream industries.
    • Transport and Port like Mumbai, Chennai, Vishakhapatnam
  • Historical Factors
    • Early industrialization, entrepreneurship, capital availability and established markets created a strong path dependency in centres such as Mumbai and Ahmedabad.

Distribution of Cotton Industry

  • Western India
    • Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Surat, Rajkot
  • Southern India
    • Coimbatore, Tirupur, Bengaluru, Madhuri, Erode
  • Central India
    • Nagpur, Indore, Ujjain
  • Northern India
    • Delhi NCR, Panipat, Hisar, Ludhiana
  • Eastern India
    • Bhagalpur, Kolkata and nearby regions

  • Ahmedabad is called Manchester of India (Manchester is name of city in England which is famous for cotton Industry)
  • Mumbai: Tradition Cotton textile known Cottonopolis of India.
  • Coimbatore: Manchester of South India.
  • Kanpur: Manchester of North

Challenges

  • Low productivity of cotton
    • India has a very large cotton growing area, but productivity remain a major concern.
    • In 2024-25, cotton productivity was around 448 kg/hac.
  • Monsoon Dependence
  • Lack of Modern Technology
  • High Logistic Cost in India
  • Environmental Concerns like water pollution
    • Cotton is water intensive crop which causes high extraction of ground water.
  • Global Competition with China, US, Egypt

Government Initiatives

  • PM-MITRA (PM Mega Integrated Textile Regions and Apparel Parks)
    • This scheme aims to create large integrated textile parks bringing spinning, weaving, processing, printing, garment manufacturing closer together.
    • The Ministry of Textile has allocated ₹ 4,445 crore for the PM-MITRA scheme over 7 years up to 2027-28.
  • National Technical Textile Mission
    • It promotes high value technical textile used in infrastructure, agriculture, healthcare, automobiles, defence and other specialized applications.
  • Integrated Textile Parks
  • Skill Development
  • Technological Modernization
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