Geography
Location of Industries
GS Paper I
Location of Industries — Quick Revision
One-page UPSC revision of industrial location: Weber's terms, location factors by industry, steel plants and partners, Indian industrial regions.
SyllabusGS I · Factors responsible for the location of primary, secondary and tertiary sector industries
A last-week revision sheet for industrial location. Learn the logic first, then the Indian examples.
Theory Terms
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Least-cost location (Weber, 1909) | Transport, labour, agglomeration |
| Ubiquitous material | Available everywhere; no locational pull |
| Localised material | Found at specific places |
| Material index | Weight of localised inputs ÷ weight of product; > 1 → near raw material |
| Isodapane | Line of equal additional transport cost |
| Footloose industry | Not tied to a raw material; still clusters |
| Agglomeration economies | Savings from clustering — shared suppliers, labour, infrastructure |
| Industrial inertia | Staying put after the original advantage fades |
Industry → Dominant Factor
| Industry | Dominant pull | Indian examples |
|---|---|---|
| Iron and steel | Raw material (ore + coking coal) | Jamshedpur, Bhilai, Rourkela, Bokaro, Durgapur |
| Aluminium | Bauxite + cheap power | Odisha, Chhattisgarh |
| Cement | Limestone (weight-losing) | Limestone-bearing districts across India |
| Sugar | Perishable cane | UP; Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu |
| Jute | Raw jute, water, port | Hugli belt |
| Cotton textiles | Market and labour (pure material) | Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Coimbatore, Tiruppur, Surat |
| IT / electronics | Skilled labour, connectivity, policy | Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai, NCR |
| Refineries | Coast / market | Coastal Gujarat, Mumbai, Visakhapatnam |
Steel Plants
| Plant | State | Partner / note |
|---|---|---|
| TISCO | Jharkhand | 1907, private |
| Bhilai | Chhattisgarh | Soviet Union |
| Rourkela | Odisha | Germany |
| Durgapur | West Bengal | United Kingdom |
| Bokaro | Jharkhand | Soviet Union |
| Visakhapatnam | Andhra Pradesh | First port-based (NCERT) |
NCERT’s Eight Major Industrial Regions
Mumbai–Pune · Hugli · Bengaluru–Tamil Nadu · Gujarat · Chotanagpur · Visakhapatnam–Guntur · Gurugram–Delhi–Meerut · Kollam–Thiruvananthapuram
High-yield facts
- First successful cotton mill: Mumbai, 1854. First cement plant: Chennai, 1904.
- Sugar shifted south: higher sucrose, longer crushing season, cooperatives.
- Semiconductor units approved: Sanand (June 2023); Dholera, Morigaon, Sanand (February 2024).
Common Traps
Watch for these
- Rourkela is German, not Soviet; Durgapur is British.
- Footloose does not mean dispersed — IT clusters strongly.
- Cotton is a pure material, so cotton textiles can locate near markets.
Related Topics
- Factors of Industrial Location
- Location of Industries — practice questions
- Industry and Infrastructure
- All quick revision sheets
Advertisement