Manufacturing Industries

1. What is manufacturing?

Manufacturing is the production of goods in large quantities after processing from raw materials into more valuable finished products. Paper is made from wood, sugar from sugarcane, iron and steel from iron ore, and aluminium from bauxite. Even some cloth is an industrial product, made from yarn which is itself manufactured.

People employed in these secondary activities turn primary materials into finished goods. Workers in steel factories, car plants, breweries, textile mills and bakeries all fall in this category. Manufacturing therefore belongs to the secondary sector of the economy.

2. Importance of manufacturing

The manufacturing sector is considered the backbone of development in general and economic development in particular, mainly because:

• Modernises agriculture: manufacturing helps modernise agriculture (which forms the backbone of our economy) and reduces the heavy dependence of people on farm income by providing them jobs in secondary and tertiary sectors.
• Removes unemployment and poverty: industrial development is a precondition for eradicating unemployment and poverty. This was the main philosophy behind public-sector industries and joint-sector ventures in India, also aimed at reducing regional disparities by setting up industries in tribal and backward areas.
• Earns foreign exchange: export of manufactured goods expands trade and commerce and brings in much-needed foreign exchange.
• Brings prosperity: countries that transform their raw materials into a wide variety of finished goods of higher value are prosperous.

3. Classification of industries

Classifying industries by a chosen criterion helps us understand them better. The main bases are:

4. Factors affecting industrial location

An industry is set up where many advantages come together so that the total cost of production is least. The key factors are:

• Raw materials — especially when they are bulky and weight-losing, the plant locates near them (sugar mills near cane fields).
• Power — a regular, cheap supply of energy (aluminium smelting needs assured low-cost electricity).
• Labour — availability of cheap and skilled workers.
• Capital — money to invest in land, machinery and running the plant.
• Market — nearness to buyers reduces the cost of distributing finished goods.
• Transport — an efficient network of railways, roadways and waterways to move raw material in and finished goods out.

Industries that lose weight during processing (cane, iron ore) sit near raw materials; those whose finished goods are bulky or fragile, or which serve a big market, tend to locate near the market. Government policy, banking, insurance and port facilities also pull industries to particular places.

5. Agro-based industries — textiles

Agro-based industries (cotton, jute, silk, woollen textiles, sugar, edible oil) are based on agricultural raw materials. Value is added in the textile chain: fibre production → spinning (yarn) → weaving/knitting (fabric) → dyeing and finishing → garment manufacture.

Textile industry: it occupies a unique position in the Indian economy — it contributes significantly to industrial production, employment and foreign exchange, and is the only industry self-reliant and complete in the value chain, from raw material to the highest value-added product.

Cotton textiles: in ancient India cotton cloth was made by hand spinning and handloom weaving. After the 18th century power-looms came in. During the colonial period our industry declined because it could not compete with mill-made cloth from England.

• The first successful textile mill was set up in Mumbai in 1854.
• The two World Wars (fought in Europe) created demand for cloth in the U.K. and gave a boost to India’s cotton textile industry.

Early on, the industry concentrated in the cotton belt of Maharashtra and Gujarat — raw cotton, market, transport, port facilities, labour and moist climate favoured it. Spinning stays centralised in Maharashtra, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, while weaving is highly decentralised. Handspun khadi gives large-scale employment to weavers at home as a cottage industry.

Jute textiles: India is the largest producer of raw jute and jute goods and second exporter after Bangladesh. Most mills lie in West Bengal along the Hugli river. Factors for this location: proximity to jute-growing areas, cheap water transport, a good network of railways and roadways, abundant water, cheap labour from West Bengal, Bihar, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh, and Kolkata providing banking, insurance and port facilities for export. The first jute mill was set up near Kolkata at Rishra in 1855.

6. Agro-based industries — sugar

India stands second as a world producer of sugar but occupies first place in the production of gur and khandsari. Sugarcane is a bulky, weight-losing raw material whose sucrose content reduces during haulage, so mills locate close to the cane fields.

The mills are in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Punjab, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh, with about 60% of mills in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The industry is seasonal, so it is ideally suited to the cooperative sector.

7. Mineral-based industries — iron and steel

Mineral-based industries use minerals and metals as raw materials. Iron and steel is the basic industry because all other industries — heavy, medium and light — depend on it for their machinery. Steel is needed for engineering goods, construction, defence, medical, scientific and consumer products; its production and consumption are an index of a country’s development.

It is a heavy industry because all raw materials and finished goods are heavy and bulky, entailing heavy transport costs. The chief raw materials — iron ore, coking coal and limestone — are required in the approximate ratio 4 : 2 : 1, with some manganese to harden the steel.

Process: raw material → blast furnace (ore melted, limestone as flux, slag removed, coke burnt) → molten metal poured into moulds called pigs (pig iron) → steel making (pig iron purified, manganese, nickel, chromium added) → shaping by rolling, pressing, casting and forging.

8. Aluminium smelting and chemical industries

Aluminium smelting is the second most important metallurgical industry in India. Aluminium is light, resistant to corrosion, a good conductor of heat, malleable and becomes strong when alloyed; it is used in aircraft, utensils and wires, and substitutes for steel, copper, zinc and lead. Smelters are in Odisha, West Bengal, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.

Its raw material, bauxite, is a very bulky, dark reddish rock: it takes 4 to 6 tonnes of bauxite → 2 tonnes of alumina → 1 tonne of aluminium. The two prime location factors are a regular supply of electricity and an assured source of raw material at minimum cost.

Chemical industries: fast growing and diversifying, with both large and small units in inorganic and organic sectors.

• Inorganic chemicals — sulphuric acid (for fertilisers, synthetic fibres, dyes), nitric acid, alkalies, soda ash (for glass, soaps, detergents, paper) and caustic soda; spread over the country.
• Organic chemicals — petrochemicals for synthetic fibres, synthetic rubber, plastics, dye-stuffs, drugs and pharmaceuticals; plants locate near oil refineries or petrochemical plants.

The chemical industry is its own largest consumer, as basic chemicals are processed further into other chemicals.

9. Fertiliser, cement, automobile and IT industries

Fertiliser industry: centred on nitrogenous fertilisers (mainly urea), phosphatic fertilisers, ammonium phosphate (DAP) and complex fertilisers with N, P and K. India has no commercially usable potash reserves, so potash is entirely imported. After the Green Revolution the industry spread; Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Kerala contribute about half the production.

Cement industry: essential for construction (houses, factories, bridges, roads, airports, dams). It needs bulky, heavy raw materials — limestone, silica, alumina and gypsum — plus coal, electric power and rail transport. The first plant was set up in Chennai in 1904; plants in Gujarat are placed to access the Gulf market.

Automobile industry: makes trucks, buses, cars, motor cycles, scooters, three-wheelers and multi-utility vehicles. After liberalisation, new models stimulated demand. Centres include Delhi, Gurugram, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Kolkata, Lucknow, Indore, Hyderabad, Jamshedpur and Bengaluru.

Information Technology and electronics: covers transistors, telephones, telecom, radars and computers. Bengaluru is the electronic capital of India. Other hubs are Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai, Kolkata, Lucknow and Coimbatore. The major impact is on employment generation, and continuing growth in hardware and software is the key to the industry’s success.

10. Industrial pollution and environmental degradation

Industries cause four types of pollution — air, water, land and noise — and the polluting industries also include thermal power plants.

• Air pollution: high proportions of undesirable gases such as sulphur dioxide and carbon monoxide, plus airborne particulate matter (dust, sprays, mist, smoke) from chemical, paper and cement factories, brick kilns, refineries, smelters and the burning of fossil fuels. Toxic gas leaks can be hazardous — recall the Bhopal Gas tragedy.
• Water pollution: organic and inorganic industrial wastes and effluents from paper, pulp, chemical, textile, dyeing, petroleum refineries, tanneries and electroplating, releasing dyes, acids, salts and heavy metals (lead, mercury). Major solid wastes are fly ash, phospho-gypsum and iron-and-steel slags.
• Thermal pollution: hot water from factories and thermal plants drained into rivers and ponds before cooling, harming aquatic life; wastes from nuclear plants cause cancers and birth defects.
• Land pollution: dumping of glass, harmful chemicals, effluents, packaging, salts and garbage; rainwater percolates and contaminates groundwater.
• Noise pollution: from machinery, generators, saws and drills — causing hearing impairment, raised heart rate and blood pressure, irritation and stress.

11. Control of environmental degradation

Every litre of waste water discharged pollutes about eight times the quantity of freshwater. Steps to reduce industrial pollution:

• Minimise water use by reusing and recycling it in two or more successive stages, and harvest rainwater to meet requirements.
• Treat hot water and effluents before releasing them — in three phases: (a) primary (mechanical screening, grinding, flocculation, sedimentation), (b) secondary (biological process), (c) tertiary (biological, chemical and physical processes, including recycling of wastewater).
• Regulate groundwater drawing legally where reserves are threatened.
• Reduce air particulates by fitting smoke stacks with electrostatic precipitators, fabric filters, scrubbers and inertial separators; reduce smoke by using oil/gas instead of coal.
• Reduce noise by silencers on machinery and generators, redesigning machinery for efficiency, noise-absorbing material and ear-plugs/earphones.

12. NCERT Exercise 1 (MCQ) — solved

(i) Which industry uses bauxite as a raw material? — (a) Aluminium Smelting. Bauxite is the ore from which alumina, and then aluminium, is extracted.

(ii) Which industry manufactures telephones, computers, etc.? — (d) Information Technology (electronics/IT industry).

13. NCERT Exercise 2 — short answers (within 30 words)

(i) What is manufacturing? Manufacturing is the production of goods in large quantities by processing raw materials into more valuable finished products — for example, making paper from wood or steel from iron ore.

(ii) What are basic industries? Give an example. Basic or key industries are those that supply their products as raw materials to manufacture other goods. Example: the iron and steel industry (also copper and aluminium smelting).

14. NCERT Exercise 3 — long answers (about 120 words)

(i) How do industries pollute the environment? Industries cause four kinds of pollution. Air pollution comes from undesirable gases like sulphur dioxide and carbon monoxide and from particulate matter — dust, mist and smoke — emitted by chemical, paper and cement factories, brick kilns, refineries and smelters; toxic leaks like the Bhopal Gas tragedy are extremely hazardous. Water pollution results from effluents and wastes (dyes, acids, salts, heavy metals) from paper, textile, chemical, refinery, tannery and electroplating units, with fly ash, phospho-gypsum and slag as solid wastes. Thermal pollution occurs when hot water from factories and power plants is drained into rivers, harming aquatic life. Land pollution from dumped wastes contaminates groundwater, and machinery causes noise pollution.

(ii) Discuss the steps to minimise environmental degradation by industry. Industrial pollution can be reduced by minimising water use through reusing and recycling it in successive stages and by harvesting rainwater. Hot water and effluents must be treated before release — in primary (mechanical), secondary (biological) and tertiary (chemical and physical) phases, with recycling of wastewater. Overdrawing of groundwater should be regulated legally. Air pollutants can be controlled by fitting smoke stacks with electrostatic precipitators, fabric filters, scrubbers and inertial separators, and by using oil or gas instead of coal. Noise can be cut by silencers on machinery and generators, redesigning machines for efficiency, using noise-absorbing material and personal ear-plugs. Planting green belts and ensuring sustainable development that balances growth with the environment complete the effort.

15. NCERT Activity puzzle — hidden answers

• 1. Industries deriving raw material from agriculture: AGRO-BASED.
• 2. Basic raw material for sugar industry: SUGARCANE.
• 3. Fibre also known as the ‘Golden Fibre’: JUTE.
• 4. Industry using iron-ore, coking coal and limestone: IRON AND STEEL.
• 5. Public-sector steel plant in Chhattisgarh: BHILAI.
• 6. Place in Uttar Pradesh where railway diesel engines are made: VARANASI.

16. Common confusions

• Agro-based vs mineral-based: agro-based use agricultural raw materials (cotton, jute, sugar); mineral-based use minerals/metals (iron & steel, aluminium, cement).
• Basic/key vs consumer industry: basic supply raw material to other industries (steel); consumer make goods for direct use (sugar, paper).
• Public vs joint vs cooperative: public = wholly government; joint = government + private together; cooperative = owned by producers/workers.
• Why sugar mills sit near fields: cane is bulky and loses sucrose in transport — not because labour is there.
• Pig iron vs steel: pig iron is crude metal from the blast furnace; steel is pig iron purified with manganese, nickel and chromium added.
• Bauxite vs alumina vs aluminium: bauxite is the ore, alumina the intermediate, aluminium the final metal (4–6 : 2 : 1 tonnes).

17. Quick revision checklist

• Manufacturing = large-scale processing of raw materials into finished goods (secondary sector).
• Importance: modernises agriculture, removes unemployment/poverty, earns foreign exchange, brings prosperity.
• Classification bases: raw material, role, investment, ownership, weight of raw material.
• Location factors: raw materials, power, labour, capital, market, transport — least-cost site.
• Textile = only fully self-reliant value chain; jute in West Bengal (Hugli); sugar shifting to Maharashtra (higher sucrose, cooperatives).
• Iron & steel = basic heavy industry; raw materials 4 : 2 : 1; concentrated in Chotanagpur.
• Aluminium: bauxite + cheap electricity. Bengaluru = electronic capital.
• Pollution: air, water, land, noise + thermal; control via recycling, effluent treatment, precipitators, silencers, green belts (NTPC).