The Iron and Steel Industry

• Almost all sectors of the Indian industry depend heavily on the iron and steel industry for their basic infrastructure.
• The other raw materials besides iron ore and coking coal, essential for iron and steel industry are limestone, dolomite, manganese and fire clay.
• All these raw materials are gross (weight losing), therefore, the best location for the iron and steel plants is near the source of raw materials.(reason for location of these industries)
• The Indian iron and steel industry consists of large integrated steel plants as well as mini steel mills.
• It also includes secondary producers, rolling mills and ancillary industries.

TISCO

• The Tata Iron and Steel plant lies very close to the Mumbai-Kolkata railway line and about 240 km away from Kolkata, which is the nearest port for the export of steel.
• The rivers Subarnarekha and Kharkai provide water to the plant.
• The iron ore for the plant is obtained from Noamundi and Badampahar and coal is brought from Joda mines in Orissa.
• Coking coal comes from Jharia and west Bokaro coalfields.

IISCO

• The Indian Iron and Steel Company (IISCO) set up its first factory at Hirapur and later on another at Kulti.
• In 1937, the Steel Corporation of Bengal was constituted in association with IISCO and set up another iron and steel producing unit at Burnpur (West Bengal).
• All the three plants under IISCO are located very close to Damodar valley coal fields (Raniganj, Jharia, and Ramgarh).
• Iron ore comes from Singhbhum in Jharkhand.
• Water is obtained from the Barakar River, a tributary of the Damodar.
• All the plants are located along the Kolkata-Asansol railway line.
• Unfortunately, steel production from IISCO fell considerably in 1972-73 and the plants were taken over by the government.

Visvesvaraiya Iron and Steel Works Ltd. (VISL)

• The third integrated steel plant, the Visvesvaraiya Iron and Steel Works, initially called the Mysore Iron and Steel Works, is located close to an iron ore producing area of Kemangundi in the Bababudan hills.
• Limestone and manganese are also locally available.
• But this region has no coal.
• Electric furnaces were installed which use hydroelectricity from the Jog Falls hydel power project.
• The Bhadravati River supplies water to the plant.
• This plant produces specialised steels and alloys.

Second Five Year Plan (1956-61),

• 3 new integrated steel plants were set up with foreign collaboration:
• Rourkela in Orissa, Bhilai in Chhattisgarh and Durgapur in West Bengal.
• These were public sector plants under Hindustan Steel Limited (HSL).
• In 1973, the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) was created to manage these plants.

Rourkela Steel Plant

• The Rourkela Steel plant was set up in 1959 in the Sundargarh district of Orissa in collaboration with Germany.
• The plant was located on the basis of proximity to raw materials, thus, minimising the cost of transporting weight losing raw material.
• This plant has a unique Locational advantage, as it receives coal from Jharia (Jharkhand) and iron ore from Sundargarh and Kendujhar.
• The Hirakud project supplies power for the electric furnaces and water is obtained from the Koel and Sankh rivers.

Bhilai Steel Plant

• The Bhilai Steel Plant was established with Russian collaboration in Durg District of Chhattisgarh and started production in 1959.
• The iron ore comes from Dalli- Rajhara mine, coal comes from Korba and Kargali coal fields.
• The water comes from the Tanduladam and the power from the Korba Thermal Power Station.
• This plant also lies on the Kolkata-Mumbai railway route.
• The bulk of the steel produced goes to the Hindustan Shipyard at Vishakhapatnam.

Durgapur Steel Plant

• Durgapur Steel Plant, in West Bengal, was set up in collaboration with the government of the United Kingdom and started production in 1962.
• This plant lies in Raniganj and Jharia coal belt and gets iron ore from Noamundi
• Durgapur lies on the main Kolkata-Delhi railway route.
• Hydel power and water is obtained from the Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC).

Bokaro Steel Plant

• This steel plant was set up in 1964 at Bokaro with Russian collaboration.
• This plant was set up on the principle of transportation cost minimisation by creating Bokaro-Rourkela combine.
• It receives iron ore from the Rourkela region and the wagons on return take coal to Rourkela.
• Water and Hydel power is supplied by the Damodar Valley Corporation.

Other Steel Plants

• New steel plants which were set up in the Fourth Plan period are away from the main raw material sources.
• All the three plants are located in South India.
• The Vizag Steel Plant, in Vishakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh is the first port based plant which started operating in 1992. Its port location is of advantage.
• The Vijaynagar Steel Plant at Hospet in Karnataka was developed using indigenous technology.
• This uses local iron ore and limestone.
• The Salem Steel Plant in Tamil Nadu was commissioned in 1982.

The Cotton Textile Industry

• The development of this industry in India was due to several factors.
• One, it is a tropical country and cotton is the most comfortable fabric for a hot and humid climate.
• Second, large quantity of cotton was grown in India.
• Abundant skilled labour required for this industry was available in this country.
• In fact, in some areas the people were producing cotton textiles for generations and transferred the skill from one generation to the other and in the process perfected their skills.
• In 1854, the first modern cotton mill was established in Mumbai. This city had several advantages as a cotton textile manufacturing centre. It was very close to the cotton producing areas of Gujarat and Maharashtra.
• Raw cotton used to be brought to Mumbai port to be transported to England. Therefore, cotton was available in Mumbai city itself.
• Mumbai even then was the financial centre and the capital needed to start an industry was available there.
• Hence, cheap and abundant labour too was available locally. The machinery required for a cotton textile mill could be directly imported from England.
• After partition, and this industry suffered a major recession.
• The cotton textile industry in India can be broadly divided into two sectors, the organised sector and the unorganised sector.
• The production of the organised sector has drastically fallen from 81 per cent in the mid-twentieth century to only about 6 per cent in 2000.
• Decentralised sector includes cloth produced in handlooms (including Khadi) and powerlooms.
• The powerlooms on the decentralised sector produce more than 59 per cent and the handloom sector produces about 19 per cent of all cotton cloth produced in the country.
• Cotton is a “pure” raw material which does not lose weight in the manufacturing process. so other factors, like, power to drive the looms, labour, capital or market may determine the location of the industry
• At present the trend is to locate the industry at or close to markets, as it is the market that decides what kind of cloth is to be produced.
• Also the market for the finished products is extremely variable; therefore, it becomes important to locate the mills close to the market.
• The rapid development of this industry in Tamil Nadu is the result of the abundant availability of hydel power for the mills.
• Presently, the major centres of the cotton textile industry are Ahmedabad, Bhiwandi, Solapur, Kolhapur, Nagpur, Indore and Ujjain.
• Maharashtra, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu are the leading cotton producing states
• Tamil Nadu has the largest number of mills and most of them produce yarn rather than cloth. Coimbatore has emerged as the most important centre with nearly half the mills located there

Sugar Industry

• The second most important agro-based industry in the country.
• India is the largest producer of both sugarcane and cane sugar
• Besides, khandasari and gur or jaggery is also prepared from sugarcane.
• Sugar industry is a seasonal industry because of the seasonality of raw materials.

Location of the Sugar Industry

• Sugarcane is a weight-losing crop. The ratio of sugar to sugarcane varies between 9 to 12 per cent depending on its variety.
• Its sucrose content begins to dry during haulage after it has been harvested from the field.
• Maharashtra has emerged as a leading sugar producer in the country and produces more than one-third of the total production of the sugar in the country.
• Uttar Pradesh is the second largest producer

Petrochemical Industries

• In 1960s, demand for organic chemicals increased so fast that it became difficult to meet this demand.
• Many items are derived from crude petroleum, which provide raw materials for many new industries, these are collectively known as petrochemical industries.
• This group of industries is divided into four sub-groups:
• Polymers, (ii) synthetic fibres, (iii) elastomers, and (iv) surfactant intermediate.
• Mumbai is the hub of the petrochemical industries. Cracker units are also located in Auraiya (Uttar Pradesh), Jamnagar, Gandhinagar and Hajira (Gujarat), Nagothane, Ratnagiri (Maharashtra), Haldia (West Bengal) and Vishakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh).
• Three organizations are working in the petrochemical sector under the administrative control of the Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals.
• First is the Indian Petrochemical Corporation Limited (IPCL), a public sector undertaking. It is responsible for the manufacture and distribution of the various petrochemicals like polymers, chemicals, fibres and fibre intermediates.
• Second Is the Petrofils Cooperative Limited (PCL), a joint venture of the Government of India and Weaver’s Cooperative Societies. It produces polyester filament yarn and nylon chips at its two plants located at Vadodara and Naldhari in Gujarat.
• Third is the Central Institute of Plastic Engineering and Technology (CIPET), involved in imparting training in petro-chemical industry.
• Polymers are made from ethylene and propylene. These materials are obtained in the process of refining crude oil. Polymers are used as raw materials in the plastic industry.
• Among polymers, polyethylene is a widely used thermoplastic.
• The National Organic Chemicals Industries Limited (NOCIL), established in private sector in 1961, started the first naphtha based chemical industry in Mumbai.
• Synthetic fibres are widely used in the manufacturing of fabrics because of their inherent strength, durability, wash ability, and resistance to shrinkage.
• Industries manufacturing nylon and polyester yarns are located at Kota, Pimpri, Mumbai, Modinagar, Pune, Ujjain, Nagpur and Udhna. Acrylic staple fibre is manufactured at Kota and Vadodara.

Knowledge based Industries

• The IT and IT enabled business process outsourcing (ITES- BPO) services continue to be on a robust growth path.
• Indian software industry has emerged as one of the fastest growing sectors in the economy.
• The software industry has surpassed electronic hardware production. The Indian government has created a number of software parks in the country.
• The IT software and services industry account for almost 2 per cent of India’s GDP.
• A majority of the multinational companies operating in the area of information technology have either software development centres or research development centres in India.
• A major impact of this growth has been on employment creation, which is almost doubled every year.