Chapter 18: Mineral Based Industry
On the morning of 3rd February 1959, a crowd gathered in Sundargarh district of Odisha, in the eastern part of the country, to watch a fire being lit. The furnace had a name, ‘Parvati’, and Dr Rajendra Prasad, India’s first President, lighted it. With that, the Rourkela Steel Plant began work — the first integrated steel plant in the public sector, with an installed capacity of 1 million tonnes. What goes on inside a blast furnace is not much to look at. Iron ore and coal are put in, with small quantities of limestone and dolomite added as flux. The unwanted material in the ore joins the flux and floats to the top as slag, while molten iron gathers at the base of the furnace, where it is collected at regular intervals. That iron is the starting point for rails, axles, bridges, sheets and tin plate. A plant of this size cannot be put down just anywhere. It has to stand where ore, coal, water, workers and a market can all reach it, and the cost of moving each of those decides where the furnace is finally built. This chapter is about that decision, and about the industries that grow out of the minerals we dig up.
Diagram
Fig. 18.A1 Caption: Ore, coal and flux go in at the top, and slag and molten iron are drawn off near the base. Brief: Simple cross-section of a blast furnace; label the charge of iron ore, coal, limestone and dolomite entering at the top, the layer of slag floating on the molten iron, and the tap points at the base; arrows point downward for the charge and outward for the slag and the molten iron.
18.1 Iron And Steel Industry
Mineral based industries are industries that use minerals as their raw material. They are among the main drivers of growth and of industrial development in a country. Iron and steel, aluminium, copper, cement, petrochemicals and electronics all belong to this group, and this chapter looks at three of them.
Why Steel Comes First
Iron and steel is a basic industry, and it forms the backbone of industrial development in any country. It does not usually make the finished object a customer buys. It makes the material out of which other industries make their objects.
Steel goes into a long list of things, and the list is worth reading slowly, because it shows how wide the dependence is. (a) Industrial machinery and electrical machinery are built from steel, so a country without steel cannot easily build its own factories. (b) Defence equipment needs steel of a controlled quality, which is why the industry is treated as strategic. (c) Railway tracks and railway engines are steel, and so are bridges and dams, which carry heavy loads for decades. (d) Shops, automobiles, houses and a host of other industrial and consumer goods use steel in their frames, fittings and bodies.
Because of this spread, the quantity of steel a country produces, and its per capita consumption, are treated as measures of how industrialised it is. Per capita consumption simply means the steel used per person in a year. A country where each person indirectly uses a lot of steel is a country that is building machines, railways and housing at a fast rate.
How The Industry Grew In India
The art of steel making was known to Indians since ancient times. The famous iron pillar in Delhi, which dates back to the Gupta period, is the evidence usually pointed to, because it has stood for centuries without rusting away.
Making iron and steel on modern lines, in furnaces at industrial scale, took much longer to establish. The first attempt was made in 1830 at Porto Novo in Tamil Nadu, on the south-eastern coast, but that mill was closed down in 1866. The first unit that was able to produce pig iron successfully was started at Kulti in 1874 and was named the Bengal Iron Work Company.
The turning point came in 1907, when Jamshedji Tata set up the Tata Iron and Steel Company at Sakchi, now Jamshedpur. From that point the industry grew steadily rather than in failed starts. According to the Ministry of Steel, India is now the second largest crude steel producing country in the world.
18.1.1 Raw Materials
An iron and steel plant does not pull in one raw material but a whole set of them, and each has a job to do.
The main raw materials used in the iron and steel industry are the following. (a) Iron ore is the source of the metal itself, and everything else in the list is there to get the metal out of it or to improve it. (b) Coal supplies both the heat and the chemical action needed to separate iron from the rock it is locked in. (c) Manganese is used for hardening steel, and it also helps in removing impurities from the melt. (d) Limestone, silica, chromate and feldspar are used in the furnace charge, and limestone in particular helps carry impurities away. (e) Scrap iron, flux and fuel complete the list, with flux being any material added to combine with impurities so that they can be lifted out of the molten metal.
Steel rusts when it is left in damp air, so steel products need to be galvanised to make them rust free. Galvanising here means coating or treating iron with other metals so that the surface resists rusting, and it is done using chromium, nickel and tungsten.
18.1.2 Steel Making
Iron ore as it comes out of the ground is never pure. It is always found with impurities such as sulphur, silica, phosphorus and lime. These impurities have to be removed to get the pure iron that is used for making steel, and the whole of steel making is really the story of removing them in stages.
The chapter sets out three stages, and Fig. 18.A2 shows how one leads into the next.
1. Ore Reduction
The process of ore reduction is carried out in a blast furnace, where the ore and the coal are put in together. Small quantities of limestone and dolomite are also added as flux, to help combine the impurities in the ore as slag, the waste layer formed when impurities join the flux.
This slag floats on the molten iron, and because it floats it can be separated easily. Molten iron is collected at the base of the furnace at regular intervals. The product obtained in this way is known as pig iron, and pig iron can then be converted into wrought iron, steel and cast iron.
2. Steel Melting Furnaces
The pig iron obtained after reducing the ore still contains up to 5 per cent carbon, along with other impurities. That is too much carbon for steel, which is why pig iron is a stage and not a product.
To convert pig iron into steel, the impurities are removed through deoxidation. Hardening materials, including carbon, are then added to get the desired quality. Carbon is therefore taken out and put back deliberately, in a controlled amount, because it is the amount that decides how hard the steel will be.
3. Rolling Mills
The steel is then cast into ingots, which are large solid blocks of cooled metal. These ingots are rolled into different sizes, so that the same steel can leave the plant as a thin sheet, a thick plate or a long bar.
Flowchart
Fig. 18.A2 Caption: Each stage removes something, and the last stage decides the shape in which the steel leaves the plant. Nodes: iron ore + coal + limestone and dolomite as flux → blast furnace → impurities combine as slag and float off → molten iron collected at the base → pig iron → pig iron converted into wrought iron / cast iron / steel → for steel: steel melting furnace → impurities removed by deoxidation → hardening materials including carbon added → steel → rolling mill → cast into ingots → rolled into different sizes
18.1.3 Large Integrated Iron And Steel Plants
An integrated steel plant is one in which all the processes are done at one place. Providing the raw materials, the basic fuels and the water supply, the conversion to steel and the rolling all happen inside the same works, so material never leaves the site between stages.
A mini steel plant works the other way. It uses electric furnaces, it does not have all the facilities at one place, and it requires separate units to complete the process of steel manufacturing. The two differ in how much of the chain sits on one site, while both end with steel of a usable quality.
18.1.4 Major Iron And Steel Plants
The Steel Authority of India, usually written as SAIL, is the largest steel making company in the public sector, which means it is owned by the government rather than by private shareholders.
SAIL’s plants are spread across the country in three groups. (a) It produces iron and steel at five integrated plants, at Bhilai, Durgapur, Rourkela, Bokaro and Burnpur. (b) It runs three special steel plants, at Salem, Durgapur and Bhadravati. (c) It also owns a Ferro Alloy plant at Chandrapur in Maharashtra.
Besides these, there are integrated steel plants in the private sector as well. The largest of them is the Tata Iron and Steel plant at Jamshedpur, and the three plants studied below show how differently the same industry can be placed on the map.
18.1.4.1 Tata Iron And Steel Company
Tata Iron and Steel Company, or TISCO, now called Tata Steel, is one of the largest manufacturing plants in Asia. It is situated at Sakchi, now called Jamshedpur, and it is the oldest steel plant in the country. It was established by Jamshedji Tata in 1907, and its steel production started in 1912.
Diagram
Fig. 18.1 Caption: Tata Iron and Steel Plant, Jamshedpur. Brief: Source photograph of the Jamshedpur works; show the blast furnace stacks, the chimneys and the internal plant road; label the furnace area so the reader connects the photograph to Fig. 18.A2.
Seven factors were responsible for the plant being located at Jamshedpur, and together they make a checklist that fits almost any heavy industry. (a) Location: the TISCO plant is situated at Jamshedpur in the Singhbhum district of Jharkhand, and Jamshedpur is most ideally located with respect to iron ore, fuel and flux supplies, which are obtained from within 175 km of it. (b) Availability of raw materials: iron ore comes from the Gurumahisani mines in Mayurbhanj district of Odisha and from the Noamundi mines in Singhbhum district of Jharkhand, and these ore deposits are rich, containing over 60 per cent iron. (c) The plant receives manganese from Joda in Keonjhar district, and limestone, dolomite and fire-clay from Sundargarh district of Odisha, while coal is obtained from the Jharia and Bokaro coalfields. (d) Power supply: coal is the main source of power for this plant, and the supply comes from the Jharia and Bokaro coalfields, located at a distance of about 177 km. (e) Water supply: the two rivers Kharkai and Subarnarekha, which never run dry throughout the year, supply a continuous stream of water for cooling purposes. (f) Labour force: the labour force is recruited from the densely populated valley of the Ganga, mostly from the States of Bihar, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Uttar Pradesh. (g) Market and transport: the plant is 240 km from Kolkata, which is both an important market for iron and steel goods and a place with facilities for export, and Jamshedpur is well connected by road and rail to the rest of the country, with the Eastern Railways moving raw materials and finished products and the Kolkata port handling exports of finished steel.
Products
The plant produces high grade carbon steel, which is used in structural fittings and tin plates. It produces acid steel, used for making railway wheels, axles, bars, rods and sheets. It also produces special alloy steel, used for making bulletproof armour plates and similar items.
18.1.4.2 Rourkela Steel Plant
The Rourkela Steel Plant was built with technical cooperation from the German firm Krupps and Demag in 1959. Its advantages are set out below. (a) Location: the plant is located at the confluence of two rivers, the Sankha and the Koel, together known as the Brahmani, in the Sundargarh district of Odisha. (b) Raw materials: the plant is situated within 80 km of the high-grade iron ore reserves of the Sundargarh and Keonjhar districts in Odisha. (c) Manganese is obtained from Barajmda in Jharkhand, limestone from Bhirmitrapur in Odisha and dolomite from Baradwar in Chhattisgarh, all situated within a short distance from the plant. (d) Power supply: coal is obtained from the Jharia, Talcher and Korba fields, and electricity comes from the Hirakud Project in Odisha. (e) Water supply: water is obtained from the Mandira dam across the Sankha river, and also from the Mahanadi. (f) Transport facilities: Rourkela is situated on the Kolkata-Nagpur rail line, which gives easy access both to the raw material producing areas and to the markets. (g) Labour force: it is recruited from Bihar, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Odisha.
Map 18.1 shows where this plant sits in relation to the others, and to the petrochemical and electronics centres studied later in the chapter.
Map
Map 18.1 Caption: Iron and steel plants, petrochemical centres and electronics centres in India. Brief: Political outline of India showing the full extent of India as officially defined, with State boundaries; three symbols in the key — star for iron and steel, square for petrochemicals, circle for electronics; label the centres printed in the book, the Tropic of Cancer, the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal, the Indian Ocean, the Andaman Sea and the Lakshadweep Sea; scale bar 1:20,000,000; no production figures are to be shown.
Products
The major products of Rourkela include hot-rolled sheets and strips, cold-rolled sheets, galvanised sheets and electrical steel plates. The plant also produces a large quantity of nitrogen as a by-product, and this nitrogen is used for the manufacture of fertilizers and various chemicals. A by-product is something made alongside the main product, and here it links a steel plant to the fertilizer industry.
18.1.4.3 Visakhapatnam Steel Plant
This plant is placed on a different logic from the other two, because it sits on the coast rather than on the ore. (a) Location: it is the first shore based steel plant in India, located at the port city of Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, on the east coast. (b) Raw materials: the plant obtains iron ore from Bailadila in Chhattisgarh, and it gets limestone, dolomite and manganese from the mines of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. (c) Power supply: it is well connected with the coalfields of the Damodar Valley, in the Jharkhand and West Bengal belt.
The plant produces liquid steel and saleable steel. The quality of the steel produced here is as per global standards, and it is exported to China and South East Asia. Being a port plant, it can send steel out by sea and bring material in the same way.
18.1.5 Mini Steel Plants
Mini steel plants generally use ferrous scrap, pig iron or sponge iron as their raw material. Sponge iron is iron taken from the ore without fully melting it, and like scrap it is already part-processed, so the mini plant starts much further along the chain. These plants work through electric furnaces and have a capacity from 10,000 tonnes to about 5 lakh tonnes, that is 500,000 tonnes, per year.
Their period of construction and gestation is also short. A gestation period is the time between spending the money and getting the first output, so a short one means the plant starts earning sooner. These mini plants are distributed in different parts of the country, particularly in areas away from the integrated steel plants.
The Government of India is promoting and planning to set up more mini steel plants for the following reasons. (a) They use scrap iron, which is easily available and comparatively cheap. (b) They are dependent on electric power, so they do not cause pollution. (c) They do not require heavy investment. (d) They need not be located near the source of raw material, because they use scrap iron from integrated steel plants. (e) These plants can meet the demands of the local market and reduce pressure on the large plants.
Mini steel plants are located at Kanpur, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Delhi, Pune and Ranchi. Read that list against Map 18.1 and the point becomes visible: these are market towns and capitals, not mining districts.
18.1.6 Problems Of Iron And Steel Industry
Although India is an important iron and steel producing country in the world, it is not able to perform to its full potential. The reasons run from money to machinery to fuel. (a) Capital intensive: the iron and steel industry requires a huge amount of capital, and iron and steel plants have a long gestation period, so the money is locked up for years before any return appears. (b) Obsolete technology: many plants established after India attained independence are not working to their full potential, because the machinery being used is outdated, and the industry lags behind the advanced countries in terms of new technological inputs. (c) Limited availability of coking coal: though India has huge deposits of high grade iron ore, her reserves of high grade coking coal, used for smelting iron ore, are limited, so many steel plants are forced to import coking coal, and the steel plant at Visakhapatnam has to import coal from Australia. (d) Sick industrial units: due to the inadequate supply of power and the sharp increase in the cost of raw materials, many small iron and steel plants are either experiencing sickness or have been closed down. (e) Control of prices: the government has fixed the price for iron and steel, leaving little margin of profit for the manufacturers. (f) Inefficiently managed public sector: many public sector plants face strikes, lockouts and an energy crisis caused by heavy investment on social overheads, along with poor labour relations, inefficient management and underutilisation of capacity. (g) Heavy demand: even at a low per capita consumption rate, demand for iron and steel is increasing rapidly, and to meet it a large quantity of iron and steel has to be imported.
The last two points are worth holding together. A plant that cannot use its full capacity, in a country whose demand is still rising, means steel is being bought from abroad while furnaces at home stand short of work.
18.2 Petrochemical Industry
Petrochemicals are important organic chemicals derived from petroleum products, LPG and coal. Organic chemicals are those built around carbon, and petroleum, gas and coal are all carbon-rich, which is why they can be turned into so many different substances.
Why The Refinery Decides The Site
This industry is normally located near an oil refinery. The refinery supplies its basic requirements of naphtha, or of ethylene and benzene, and naphtha is a light liquid separated from crude oil during refining.
These chemicals are then used for manufacturing a large variety of articles, and the range is unusually wide. (a) Synthetic fibres and synthetic rubber are made from them, which is why cloth and tyres now come out of a chemical plant rather than a field or a plantation. (b) Ferrous and non ferrous metals are processed with their help, ferrous meaning metals containing iron and non ferrous meaning those that do not. (c) Plastics and dyestuffs come from the same set of raw chemicals. (d) Drugs and pharmaceuticals are also built up from petrochemical starting materials.
The products are widely used today in domestic, industrial and agricultural fields. In particular, this industry produces the following. (a) Fertilizers and insecticides, which take the industry directly into farming. (b) Resins and adhesives for industries, which hold together everything from plywood to packaging. (c) Plastic sheets, plastic foam, bowls and baskets, paints and furniture coverings for household items. (d) Carbon black, a fine black powder, which is used in printing inks, paints and carbon paper.
Flowchart
Fig. 18.A3 Caption: One refinery output branches into a whole family of everyday goods. Nodes: petroleum products / LPG / coal → oil refinery → naphtha, ethylene, benzene → petrochemical plant → branches: synthetic fibres and synthetic rubber → cloth and tyres; plastics and resins → sheets, foam, bowls, baskets, adhesives; dyestuffs and carbon black → paints and printing inks; fertilizers and insecticides → agriculture; drugs and pharmaceuticals → medicines
18.2.1 Advantages Of Petrochemical Products
Petrochemical products are cost-effective and economically stable, and they are cheaper products because they are produced on a mass scale. Once a plant is running, each extra unit costs little to make, and that is what pushes the price down.
The raw material is easily available, and it is not dependent on agricultural raw material as in the case of cotton and jute. That difference matters more than it first appears. A cotton crop or a jute crop depends on rainfall, on soil and on the season, so its supply and its price move from year to year, while a refinery delivers naphtha at a steady rate whatever the weather has done.
For this reason, traditional raw materials like wood, glass and metals are being replaced by petrochemical products. Table 18.1 sets the two side by side.
18.2.2 Production Units
The industry is spread over several States, and the location of each unit follows either a refinery, a port or an established market. Eight units are studied here.
1. Herdillia Chemicals Ltd.
It was set up at Chennai, on the Coromandel coast, in collaboration with the Distillers Co. Ltd. of the United Kingdom and Hercules Power Co. of the USA. It manufactures a number of heavy organic chemicals like phenol, acetone and diacetone alcohol, along with their derivatives, which are by-products, co-products and compounds.
2. National Organic Chemicals Industries Ltd.
It is the biggest unit in India, and it was sponsored by the Mafatlals in the Thane-Belapur area near Mumbai. It is also the first integrated plant in India based on the latest technology in the petrochemical field. The plant produces naphtha, which is then used to produce ethylene, benzene and PVC.
3. Petrofils Cooperative Limited
Known as PCL, it is a joint venture of the Government of India and the Weavers’ Cooperative Societies. It has three plants, located at Vadodara and Naldhari in Gujarat. It manufactures yarn used for making swim suits and undergarments, along with polyester filament yarn and nylon chips.
4. Indian Petrochemical Corporation Ltd.
It is located at Jawaharnagar near Vadodara. It manufactures a number of petrochemicals like polymers, synthetic organic chemicals and fibres.
5. The Bongaigaon Petrochemicals Ltd.
It is located at Bongaigaon in Assam, in the north-east of the country. It draws its raw materials from the Bongaigaon and Noonmati refineries, which is the refinery link stated at the start of this section, visible on the ground.
6. The Reliance Industries
It is located at Hazira in Gujarat, on the western coast.
7. Haldia Petrochemicals Ltd.
It is a modern naphtha based petrochemical complex located at Haldia in West Bengal. It manufactures a wide range of polyolefins and chemicals like benzene, butadiene and cyclo-pentane.
8. The Indian Oil Corporation
It has set up three world class mega petrochemical plants, in Gujarat and at Panipat in Haryana.
18.3 Electronics
The electronics industry developed in India in the 1950s. It began with radio manufacturing, which at the time meant assembling a handful of components into a single household object.
At present it has diversified into new areas, and the spread shows how far the industry has moved from that beginning. (a) Space exploration depends on it for guidance, control and communication equipment. (b) Defence equipment uses it for detection, communication and control systems. (c) Medical diagnosis relies on electronic instruments to see inside the body. (d) Communication, information technology and computer systems form the largest area of all, and Indian hardware and software are in great demand worldwide.
The electronic industry requires a large number of skilled workers, so it settles where trained people already are rather than where a mineral is found. It is a fast growing tertiary occupation, meaning work that provides a service rather than digging out a raw material or making a bulk good, and it has a larger concentration in the Southern States.
Table 18.2 pulls together the main centres of every industry studied in this chapter, so that the three can be compared on one page.
18.3.1 Relevance In The Modern World
The electronic industry is crucial for modern economies, because it drives technological advancement. It fuels economic growth through job creation and exports, and it improves efficiency across all sectors, since almost every other industry now runs on some form of electronic control.
It is essential for innovations in areas like communication, healthcare, education, entertainment and space exploration. The development of the electronics industry is therefore linked to a nation’s competitiveness and to its ability to integrate into global value chains, that is, into the worldwide chains in which different countries make different parts of the same finished product.
1. The Indian Telephone Industries
Known as ITI, it was the first government undertaking to be set up after Independence, near Bengaluru in 1950. It produces equipment to meet the needs of the post and telegraph departments, the railways, defence, overseas communication services and electricity boards. Among other items, it manufactures automatic telephone switching systems, teleprinter exchanges and long distance transmission systems.
2. The Electronics Corporation of India Ltd.
Known as ECIL, it is an indigenous unit, meaning one developed within the country rather than brought in from outside. It was set up in Hyderabad in 1970 and has a well equipped laboratory where tests are carried out.
Among its products are transistorised modular systems for nuclear applications and for use in medical, agricultural and industrial fields. Components like metal oxide resistors, analog computers and online digital process control computers are also produced.
3. The Bharat Electronics Ltd.
Known as BEL, it was set up in the public sector in 1956 in Bengaluru, to fulfil the needs of the electronics in defence services. It also caters to the needs of All India Radio and the Meteorological Department. BEL makes an important contribution in the fields of communications, radar, fire, control systems for tanks and various kinds of optical system.
18.3.2 Space Technology
Our space technology is supported by the electronics industry, because a satellite is in the end a package of electronic instruments that must survive being thrown into orbit. India has successfully launched indigenously built satellites such as the Apple and INSAT series.
Three institutions are named as landmarks in space technology. (a) The Indian Space Research Organisation, or ISRO, at Bengaluru in Karnataka. (b) The Satellite launching Station at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, on the east coast. (c) The National Remote Sensing Agency at Hyderabad in Telangana.
India is among the six nations of the world to possess the capability to launch satellites into Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit, written as GTO. ISRO had developed two rockets for different jobs. The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, or PSLV, puts satellites into polar orbits, while the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, or GSLV, places satellites into geostationary orbits. These rockets have launched numerous communication satellites and earth observation satellites.
Missions Beyond The Earth
India has become the first country in the world to reach Mars on its first attempt, in September 2014. The Mars Orbiter Mission, also called Mangalyaan, was a space probe orbiting Mars. It was India’s first interplanetary mission, and it made India the fourth space agency to reach Mars, after Roscosmos, NASA and the European Space Agency.
Chandrayaan-I, India’s first scientific mission to the moon, was launched in 2008, and Chandrayaan-II was launched in 2019. Chandrayaan-III, launched on July 14, 2023, successfully landed on the Lunar South Pole on August 23, 2023, positioning India as the fourth nation with lunar soft landing capability. A soft landing means setting a craft down slowly enough for its instruments to survive and keep working.
Diagram
Fig. 18.2 Caption: Chandrayaan-III. Brief: Source photograph of the Chandrayaan-III launch vehicle on the pad at the launch site; show the full rocket and the service tower; keep the surrounding vegetation visible to convey the coastal setting of the launching station.
The Make In India Scheme
The Make in India initiative was launched on 25th September 2014 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It represents a comprehensive effort to revitalise India’s manufacturing sector, and to make that sector a key player in the global economy.
The scheme sets out four key objectives. (a) Simplifying the investment process, so as to attract both foreign and domestic investors. (b) Fostering innovation and research in various sectors. (c) Enhancing skill development, to provide a skilled workforce that meets the demands of the manufacturing sector. (d) Building infrastructure by developing industrial corridors and smart cities with state-of-the-art technology.
It rests on four pillars, each of which names the thing to be changed. (a) New Processes: streamlining business processes to improve the ease of doing business. (b) New Infrastructure: upgrading existing infrastructure and developing new industrial corridors. (c) New Sectors: identifying 25 sectors for growth, including manufacturing, infrastructure and services. (d) New Mindset: shifting the government’s role from regulator to business partner.
Two achievements are claimed for the scheme. There has been a significant increase in Foreign Direct Investment, written as FDI, in sectors like defence production, construction and railway infrastructure, foreign direct investment being money put into a business here by a company based abroad. Besides enhancing India’s reputation as a manufacturing destination, the scheme has created numerous job opportunities in the manufacturing sector.
18.3.3 Software Industry
The software industry has emerged as one of the fastest growing sectors in electronics in India. The Department of Electronics has adopted a proactive role to further enhance the competitiveness of India in Information Technology, and it has initiated a number of programmes for manpower development, quality upgradation, and the stimulation of software engineering and research. India has achieved the capability of designing and building supercomputers.
Bengaluru and Hyderabad are the leading centres of the software industry, and the chapter gives four reasons why these two cities and not others. (a) Both cities have an equable climate, meaning temperatures that do not swing sharply between seasons, which suits both people and equipment. (b) They have world class infrastructure, with many Special Economic Zones, written as SEZ, and IT parks. (c) They hold a vast pool of highly skilled workforce, which is the industry’s real raw material. (d) Global software giants are present there, and connectivity is strong in both senses, physical and virtual.
18.3.4 Television And Audio
The television and audio industries bloomed in the 1990s, as a result of the progress made by the electronics industry. The pattern is the one this chapter keeps repeating: an industry supplying components makes a consumer industry possible.
The audio industry can be broadly classified into the following types. (a) Mono players, which use a single sound channel. (b) Stereo players, which use two channels to give a sense of direction to the sound. (c) Midi systems, which combine several audio units into one compact set. (d) CD based systems, which read sound stored on a disc. (e) Car audio systems, built to work in a moving vehicle.
The main centres of production are Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Pune. All four are large cities with ports or established industry nearby, which is what a consumer goods industry needs, since it is selling to people rather than digging up material.
18.4 Summary
- Mineral based industries are those that use minerals as their raw material, and they include iron and steel, aluminium, copper, cement, petrochemicals and electronics.
- Iron and steel is a basic industry and the backbone of industrial development, because it supplies the material other industries build with.
- It goes into industrial and electrical machinery, defence equipment, railway tracks and engines, bridges, dams, shops, automobiles and houses.
- The quantity of steel produced, and its per capita consumption, are used as measures of a country’s industrialisation.
- Steel making in India began long before the modern industry, and the iron pillar in Delhi from the Gupta period is the usual evidence.
- The first modern attempt was made at Porto Novo in 1830, but that mill closed in 1866.
- The first unit to produce pig iron successfully was started at Kulti in 1874 as the Bengal Iron Work Company.
- Jamshedji Tata set up the Tata Iron and Steel Company at Sakchi in 1907, which was the turning point, and India is now the second largest crude steel producing country in the world.
- The main raw materials of the industry are iron ore, coal, manganese, limestone, silica, chromate, feldspar, scrap iron, flux and fuel.
- Manganese hardens the steel and helps remove impurities.
- Steel is galvanised with chromium, nickel and tungsten to make it rust free.
- Iron ore always carries impurities such as sulphur, silica, phosphorus and lime, and steel making is the removal of these in three stages.
- Ore reduction takes place in a blast furnace, where limestone and dolomite act as flux, the impurities float off as slag, and molten iron collected at the base gives pig iron.
- Steel melting furnaces remove the impurities of pig iron, which holds up to 5 per cent carbon, through deoxidation, and hardening materials including carbon are then added.
- Rolling mills cast the steel into ingots and roll it into different sizes.
- An integrated steel plant carries out every process at one site, while a mini steel plant uses electric furnaces and needs separate units to complete the work.
- The Steel Authority of India is the largest public sector steel maker, with five integrated plants at Bhilai, Durgapur, Rourkela, Bokaro and Burnpur, three special steel plants at Salem, Durgapur and Bhadravati, and a Ferro Alloy plant at Chandrapur.
- The Tata Iron and Steel Company at Jamshedpur is the oldest steel plant in the country, established in 1907, with production from 1912.
- Its ore, fuel and flux come from within 175 km, its coal from Jharia and Bokaro about 177 km away, and its water from the Kharkai and the Subarnarekha.
- Its labour comes from the densely populated Ganga valley, and Kolkata, 240 km away, is both its market and its export outlet.
- It produces carbon steel, acid steel and special alloy steel.
- The Rourkela Steel Plant was built with German technical cooperation in 1959 at the confluence of the Sankha and the Koel in Sundargarh district.
- High-grade iron ore lies within 80 km, coal comes from Jharia, Talcher and Korba, and electricity from the Hirakud Project.
- It produces hot-rolled and cold-rolled sheets, galvanised sheets and electrical steel plates, with nitrogen as a by-product used in fertilizers.
- The Visakhapatnam Steel Plant is the first shore based steel plant in India, drawing iron ore from Bailadila and power from the Damodar Valley coalfields, and exporting steel to China and South East Asia.
- Mini steel plants melt ferrous scrap, pig iron or sponge iron in electric furnaces, with capacities from 10,000 tonnes to about 5 lakh tonnes a year.
- They are cheap to build, quick to start, non-polluting and free of the need to sit beside a mine.
- They are located at Kanpur, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Delhi, Pune and Ranchi, serving local markets.
- The industry does not work to its full potential because it is capital intensive, uses obsolete technology, is short of high grade coking coal, carries sick units, works under fixed prices, suffers inefficient public sector management, and faces demand that outruns supply.
- Petrochemicals are organic chemicals derived from petroleum products, LPG and coal, and the industry is normally located near an oil refinery that supplies naphtha, ethylene and benzene.
- It yields fertilizers and insecticides, resins and adhesives, plastic goods for the household, and carbon black for inks and paints.
- Its products are cheaper because they are mass produced, and its raw material does not depend on a crop or a season.
- Traditional materials such as wood, glass, metals, leather, jute and natural rubber are steadily being replaced by them.
- The petrochemical units studied are spread over Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Assam, West Bengal and Haryana, each tied to a refinery, a port or an established market.
- The electronics industry began in the 1950s with radio manufacturing and now reaches into space exploration, defence, medical diagnosis, communication and computer systems.
- It needs skilled workers rather than heavy raw material, and is concentrated in the Southern States.
- ITI near Bengaluru, ECIL at Hyderabad and BEL at Bengaluru are its major public sector units.
- Space technology rests on the electronics industry, with ISRO at Bengaluru, the Satellite launching Station at Sriharikota and the National Remote Sensing Agency at Hyderabad.
- The PSLV places satellites in polar orbits and the GSLV in geostationary orbits.
- The Mars Orbiter Mission of September 2014 made India the first country to reach Mars on its first attempt.
- Chandrayaan-III landed on the Lunar South Pole on August 23, 2023, making India the fourth nation with lunar soft landing capability.
- The Make in India scheme, launched on 25th September 2014, works through new processes, new infrastructure, new sectors and a new mindset, to strengthen manufacturing and attract investment.
- Bengaluru and Hyderabad lead the software industry because of their equable climate, SEZs and IT parks, skilled workforce, global firms and strong connectivity, while the television and audio industries of the 1990s centre on Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Pune.
Flowchart
Fig. 18.A4 Caption: Three industries, one starting point — what comes out of the ground decides what the factory can make. Nodes: minerals as raw material → mineral based industries → branch 1: iron ore + coal → iron and steel → blast furnace → pig iron → steel → integrated plants (Jamshedpur, Rourkela, Visakhapatnam) / mini plants using scrap; branch 2: petroleum, LPG and coal → oil refinery → naphtha, ethylene, benzene → petrochemicals → fibres, plastics, fertilizers, dyestuffs; branch 3: processed materials + skilled workers → electronics → communication and computers / space technology / software / television and audio
What This Chapter Cannot Tell You
This chapter names plants and centres, but it does not give the output of any of them, so it can tell you where an industry is and not how large it is. Map 18.1 and Table 18.2 both share that limit, because one symbol and one line of text look the same for a giant works and a small unit.
It also says almost nothing about what these industries send back into the air, the water and the soil around them. A blast furnace, a petrochemical complex and an electronics plant each leave a mark on the place they stand in, and that side of the balance sheet is not drawn up here. ## 18.5 Check Your Concepts
- Study Table 18.2. The iron and steel plants and the electronics units are concentrated in very different parts of the country. State where each group is concentrated, and give one reason from the chapter for each concentration.
- Arrange the stages of steel making in order, from iron ore entering the plant to a rolled sheet leaving it. At each stage, state what is removed and what is added.
- The Rourkela Steel Plant was built with an installed capacity of 1 million tonnes a year, while a mini steel plant has a capacity of up to about 5 lakh tonnes a year. How many mini steel plants working at full capacity would be needed to match Rourkela’s installed capacity? Show your working.
- Map 18.1 marks every centre with the same symbol.
- Explain why the map cannot tell you which steel plant in India is the largest.
- Name one thing that would have to be added to the map before it could answer that question.
- Which is the largest mineral-based industry in India? Why is it called the backbone of all industries?
- State any three factors which affect the location of an integrated steel plant.
- Give a geographical reason for each of the following:
- Steel products need to be galvanised.
- Besides iron, manganese is a very important raw material in the steel manufacturing process.
- Mini steel plants are located far from iron-ore deposits.
- Why are traditional raw materials being replaced by petrochemical products?
- The electronic industry has made an impact on both media and education. Give reasons to support your answer.
- State the difficulties experienced by the iron and steel industry in India.