Economic Geography: Agriculture, Industry and Transport
This domain asks you to explain where economic activities locate, using Indian and Assamese examples rather than generic lists.
Agriculture
Farming ranges from subsistence to commercial and plantation. Assam's dominant crop is rice, grown in the alluvial Brahmaputra and Barak valleys during the kharif season. Tea is a plantation crop needing well-drained slopes, 150–250 cm rainfall, 20–30 °C and abundant cheap labour; Assam is India's largest tea-producing state, with gardens concentrated in Upper Assam and the Barak valley. Jute thrives in the humid Barak valley. Shifting cultivation (jhum) persists in the hill districts.
Industry
Location factors are raw material, power, transport, market, labour, capital and government policy. Agro-based industries include tea processing, rice and sugar mills; mineral-based industries include the Digboi refinery (India's first, 1901), Numaligarh and Bongaigaon, plus cement and paper. Handicrafts include Assam silk - muga, eri and pat.
Transport
Roads carry most traffic, with national highways and Brahmaputra bridges at Saraighat, Naranarayan and Bogibeel linking the north and south banks. Railways have been progressively converted to broad gauge. National Waterway 2 uses the Brahmaputra, and air links radiate from Guwahati.
Worked example
A tea estate of 1,000 hectares yielding 1,800 kg of made tea per hectare produces 1,000 × 1,800 = 18,00,000 kg = 1,800 tonnes in the season.
Traps
- Classifying tea as a food crop; it is a beverage plantation crop.
- Forgetting that Digboi is India's oldest refinery, not the largest.
- Assuming all industrial location is raw-material based; policy and market also decide.