Geography of India III: Industrial Development and Regions, Industrial Policies, Transport Networks, Internal and External Trade, Regional Development Planning, Globalisation and Natural Disasters
2. Transport networks and internal and external trade
Railways: the first passenger train ran from Bombay to Thane in 1853; the network grew to carry raw materials to the ports, which explains its colonial pattern of lines focused on Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai. Since independence the priorities have been gauge conversion to broad gauge (Project Unigauge), electrification, and the Dedicated Freight Corridors — the Eastern (Ludhiana to Sonnagar) and the Western (Dadri to the Jawaharlal Nehru Port) — with a high-speed line under construction between Mumbai and Ahmedabad. Roads: India has the second-largest road network in the world; the Golden Quadrilateral (linking Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata) and the North–South (Srinagar–Kanyakumari) and East–West (Silchar–Porbandar) corridors of the National Highways Development Programme, the Bharatmala programme (2017) and the rural roads of the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (2000) have transformed accessibility. Waterways: the National Waterways Act (2016) declared 111 national waterways, of which NW-1 (the Ganga–Bhagirathi–Hooghly from Haldia to Prayagraj) and NW-2 (the Brahmaputra from Sadiya to Dhubri) are the most important, and the Sagarmala programme (2015) promotes port-led development; the Jawaharlal Nehru Port is the leading container port. Airways have expanded rapidly since liberalisation, with the UDAN scheme (2016) for regional connectivity. Pipelines carry crude, products and gas — the Hazira–Bijaipur–Jagdishpur (HBJ) gas pipeline (1987) was the first major cross-country gas trunk line and seeded fertiliser and power plants along its route.
Internal trade moves mainly by road and rail between producing and consuming regions — grain from the north-west, coal and minerals from the eastern plateau, manufactures from the western and southern industrial regions; the Goods and Services Tax (2017) replaced a patchwork of state levies with a single national market, and eNAM (2016) links agricultural markets electronically. External trade has grown rapidly since 1991, but merchandise trade remains in deficit, offset partly by a large surplus in services, above all information-technology exports. By composition, the leading merchandise exports are refined petroleum products, engineering goods, gems and jewellery, drugs and pharmaceuticals, electronics (led by smartphones), chemicals, textiles and rice; the leading imports are crude petroleum (the largest single item), electronic goods, gold, coal, machinery, edible oils and fertilisers. By direction, the United States is the largest export market, China the largest source of imports, and the UAE, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia and — for crude oil since 2022 — Russia are other major partners; trade has shifted from Europe towards Asia and the Gulf.
3. Regional development planning in India and the impact of globalisation
Regional development planning in India has moved through several approaches. River-valley planning began with the Damodar Valley Corporation (1948), modelled on the Tennessee Valley Authority, for flood control, irrigation, power and development of a whole basin. Area-development programmes targeted problem regions: the Command Area Development Programme and the Tribal Sub-Plan (both from the Fifth Plan, 1974–75), the Drought Prone Areas Programme (1973), the Desert Development Programme (1977) and the Hill Area Development Programme. The growth-centre approach sought to seed development through selected towns (Chapter 15 of this course). Target-group programmes followed — the Integrated Rural Development Programme (1978–80) — and multi-level planning was institutionalised by the 73rd and 74th Amendments (1992), which created panchayati raj and urban local bodies and District Planning Committees. The National Capital Region Planning Board (1985) plans a metropolitan region across states. Since the Planning Commission was replaced by NITI Aayog (2015), the emphasis has been on competitive and cooperative federalism and on ranking lagging areas: the Backward Regions Grant Fund (2006) gave way to the Aspirational Districts Programme (2018), which tracks over a hundred of the least developed districts on health, education, agriculture, infrastructure and financial inclusion, and was extended to aspirational blocks in 2023.
Globalisation in India dates from the reforms of 1991, forced by a balance-of-payments crisis: liberalisation of industry and trade, privatisation, and integration with world markets. Its impacts are spatially uneven. Growth accelerated and was led by services — information technology and business-process outsourcing concentrated in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai and the National Capital Region — while manufacturing's share of output stagnated. Foreign investment flowed overwhelmingly to the western and southern states and the metropolitan regions, coastal and port locations gained, and interstate disparities widened: the gap between Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala on one side and Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh on the other grew in per-capita income. Agriculture was exposed to world price swings, contributing to agrarian distress; employment became more informal; and special economic zones and industrial corridors intensified conflicts over land.
4. Natural disasters in India, including Himalayan highland hazards
| Disaster | Exposure and recent examples |
|---|---|
| Earthquake | Over half the land is exposed to moderate or higher seismic hazard; the highest zone of the Bureau of Indian Standards' seismic code covers the Himalayan arc, the north-east, Kachchh and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Assam 1950 (magnitude about 8.6), Latur 1993 (intraplate, in the "stable" peninsula), Bhuj 2001 (about 7.7), Kashmir 2005 |
| Drought | About two-thirds of the cultivable area is vulnerable; chronic in western Rajasthan, Gujarat, Marathwada, interior Karnataka, Telangana and Bundelkhand; linked to monsoon failure and often to El Niño years |
| Flood | About 40 million hectares are flood-prone, above all in the Brahmaputra and Ganga basins (Assam, Bihar — the Kosi breach of 2008), with urban and flash floods increasing (Kerala 2018, Chennai 2015) |
| Cyclone | Most of the coast is exposed, the east coast far more than the west; Odisha super cyclone 1999, Phailin 2013, Fani 2019, Amphan 2020; Arabian Sea cyclones such as Tauktae 2021 and Biparjoy 2023 are becoming more frequent |
| Tsunami | The Andaman–Sumatra subduction zone and the Makran coast are the sources; the 2004 tsunami struck Tamil Nadu and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands; warnings by INCOIS since 2007 |
Himalayan highland hazards and disasters combine young, steep, tectonically active terrain with intense rain and a retreating cryosphere, made worse by roads, dams and unplanned construction. They include landslides on over-steepened, weathered slopes; avalanches; cloudbursts and flash floods; GLOFs; earthquakes; and land subsidence. The Kedarnath disaster of June 2013 combined extreme rainfall with the outburst of Chorabari lake; the Chamoli disaster of February 2021 was a massive rock and ice avalanche from Ronti peak that swept down the Rishiganga and Dhauliganga and destroyed two hydropower projects; and the subsidence of Joshimath in January 2023 exposed the fragility of towns built on old landslide debris. The institutional response rests on the Disaster Management Act, 2005, which created the National Disaster Management Authority chaired by the Prime Minister, state and district authorities and the National Disaster Response Force; the National Policy on Disaster Management (2009); and the National Disaster Management Plan (2016), aligned with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030. Odisha's cyclone preparedness — from about 10,000 deaths in 1999 to a few dozen in Phailin (2013) — is the model case of risk reduction.
Key takeaways
- IPR 1948 and 1956 and the Mahalanobis plan built public-sector heavy industry (Bhilai, Rourkela, Durgapur); the 1991 policy delicensed and liberalised; Make in India (2014), corridors and PLI schemes followed.
- Industrial regions: Hugli (jute, oldest), Mumbai–Pune, Chotanagpur (coal and iron, Jamshedpur 1907), Gujarat (petrochemicals, Jamnagar), Bengaluru–Chennai (engineering, IT), Gurugram–Delhi–Meerut (automobiles).
- Railways since 1853 and the dedicated freight corridors; the Golden Quadrilateral, NS–EW corridors, Bharatmala and PMGSY; NW-1 and NW-2 among 111 national waterways; the HBJ gas pipeline (1987); GST (2017) unified internal trade; crude oil and gold lead imports, the US is the top export market and China the top import source.
- Regional planning: DVC (1948, on the TVA model), area programmes (DPAP 1973, DDP 1977, Tribal Sub-Plan), growth centres, the 73rd and 74th Amendments (1992), NITI Aayog (2015) and the Aspirational Districts Programme (2018); globalisation since 1991 widened interstate disparities.
- Disasters: earthquakes (Assam 1950, Latur 1993, Bhuj 2001), drought, floods, east-coast cyclones, the 2004 tsunami, and Himalayan hazards (Kedarnath 2013, the Chamoli rock-ice avalanche 2021, Joshimath 2023); the DM Act 2005 created the NDMA under the Prime Minister, aligned since 2015 with Sendai.
Practice questions (13)
Attempt each one before opening the answer. Every explanation names the tempting wrong option as well as the right one, because that is where marks are lost.
The Second Five-Year Plan (1956–61), which emphasised heavy industry and public-sector steel plants, was based on the model of:
Show answer
Answer: D — P.C. Mahalanobis
The Mahalanobis model gave priority to capital-goods industries to build a self-reliant industrial base; the Industrial Policy Resolution of 1956 reserved basic industries for the public sector. The First Plan drew on the Harrod–Domar model.The Bhilai steel plant was built with the collaboration of:
Show answer
Answer: A — The Soviet Union
Of the three Second Plan steel plants, Bhilai was built with Soviet help, Rourkela with West German help and Durgapur with British help.The oldest industrial region of India, which grew along the river around Kolkata on the port and the jute of the delta, is the:
Show answer
Answer: B — Hugli industrial region
Hooghlyside developed from the nineteenth century on the port of Calcutta and the raw jute of the Bengal delta; partition cut it off from much of its jute supply. Chotanagpur is based on coal and iron ore, and Mumbai–Pune on cotton textiles and later petrochemicals.The Golden Quadrilateral highway network connects:
Show answer
Answer: C — Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata
The Golden Quadrilateral links the four metropolitan cities. Srinagar–Kanyakumari is the North–South corridor and Silchar–Porbandar the East–West corridor of the same National Highways Development Programme.National Waterway 1 runs along:
Show answer
Answer: C — The Ganga–Bhagirathi–Hooghly from Haldia to Prayagraj
NW-1 is the Ganga–Bhagirathi–Hooghly system from Haldia to Prayagraj (about 1,620 km). NW-2 is the Brahmaputra from Sadiya to Dhubri, and NW-3 the West Coast Canal in Kerala.Which of the following are among India's largest merchandise imports by value? Select all that apply.
Show answer
Answer: C — Gold; D — Crude petroleum
Crude petroleum is India's largest import and gold one of the largest. Tea and rice are exports — India is the world's largest rice exporter and a leading tea exporter.The HBJ pipeline, India's first major cross-country natural-gas trunk line (1987), runs from:
Show answer
Answer: A — Hazira to Bijaipur and Jagdishpur
GAIL's Hazira–Bijaipur–Jagdishpur pipeline carried gas from the Bombay High and South Basin fields to fertiliser and power plants in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, seeding industry along its route.The Damodar Valley Corporation (1948), India's first multipurpose river-valley authority, was modelled on:
Show answer
Answer: D — The Tennessee Valley Authority of the United States
DVC was set up to control floods, irrigate, generate power and develop the whole Damodar basin on the TVA model of integrated basin planning, launched in the United States in 1933.The programme launched in 2018 to improve the least developed districts of India through ranking on health, education, agriculture, infrastructure and financial inclusion is the:
Show answer
Answer: B — Aspirational Districts Programme
NITI Aayog's Aspirational Districts Programme (2018) ranks over a hundred districts on real-time indicators, relying on convergence and competition; it was extended to aspirational blocks in 2023. The BRGF dates from 2006, the DPAP from 1973 and the IRDP from 1978–80.Under the Disaster Management Act, 2005, the National Disaster Management Authority is chaired by the:
Show answer
Answer: D — Prime Minister
The Act created a three-tier structure — the NDMA under the Prime Minister, State Disaster Management Authorities under chief ministers and District Authorities under collectors — together with the National Disaster Response Force.Assertion (A): India's east coast experiences far more tropical cyclones than its west coast. Reason (R): The Bay of Bengal generates several times as many cyclones as the Arabian Sea, and most of them move west or north-west towards the east coast. Choose the correct option.
Show answer
Answer: A — Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A
Both are true and R explains A. The warmer Bay, fed by disturbances from the western Pacific, spawns more cyclones, and the prevailing steering currents carry them onto the Odisha, Andhra, Tamil Nadu and Bengal coasts.The disaster of February 2021 in Chamoli district, Uttarakhand, which destroyed the Rishiganga and Tapovan hydropower projects, was triggered by:
Show answer
Answer: C — A massive rock and ice avalanche from a Himalayan peak
In winter, a large mass of rock and glacier ice collapsed from Ronti peak and turned into a debris flow down the Rishiganga and Dhauliganga — a Himalayan highland hazard linked to steep, fractured, deglaciating slopes, not to monsoon rain or a dam breach.In which year did the first passenger train in India run, between Bombay and Thane? Type a number.
Numerical answer — type the value.
Show answer
Answer: 1853
The first passenger train ran on 16 April 1853 over the 34 km between Bori Bunder (Bombay) and Thane. The network that followed was built largely to carry raw materials to the ports.