Minerals & Industry — PPSC previous year questions

India's largest tidal-energy potential lies in the Gulf of Khambhat (Cambay) in Gujarat, about 7,000 MW. Next comes the Gulf of Kutch, around 1,200 MW, then the Sundarbans delta in West Bengal, about 100 MW. The Gulf of Khambhat has one of the highest tidal ranges in India, up to about 11 m. The Odisha and Chennai coasts have small tidal ranges and little potential.

Sethu Samudram is a proposed ship canal project. It would make a navigable channel through the shallows between India and Sri Lanka. It is not a hydropower project, so this pair is wrong. The other three are correct. Mundra in Gujarat has an ultra mega power project. Kandla in the Gulf of Kutch is a chosen site for tidal power. Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu is a nuclear power station built with Russian help.

Muscovite (white mica) and biotite (black mica) are the two main types of mica; phlogopite and lepidolite are others. Argentine is not a mica at all, and proustite is a silver-arsenic sulphide ore, so 1 and 3 are not types of mica.

Madhya Pradesh is India's leading diamond producer, with the Panna belt (Majhgawan mine) supplying almost all the country's output. Chhattisgarh, Gujarat and Karnataka have no significant diamond mining.

X is lithium, a soft silvery-white alkali metal. It is needed for rechargeable batteries. So it is vital for India's electric-vehicle and renewable-energy shift. In February 2023 the Geological Survey of India reported inferred resources of 5.9 million tonnes of lithium at Salal-Haimana in Reasi district, Jammu and Kashmir. The 'lithium triangle' of Argentina, Bolivia and Chile holds over half the world's resources. Caesium is also an alkali metal, but it is not critical for batteries and not found at Reasi. Selenium and aluminium are not alkali metals.

Makrana in Nagaur district of Rajasthan is famous for its high-quality white marble, which was used to build the Taj Mahal.

The 44 MW Chutak hydroelectric project is a run-of-river scheme (uses the river's natural flow, without a large storage dam) on the Suru river, a tributary of the Indus, near Kargil; it was built by NHPC and commissioned in 2012–13. When the question was set, Kargil lay in the State of Jammu & Kashmir. Since 2019 it has been in the Union Territory of Ladakh, so read the option as the erstwhile state.

Australia and Kazakhstan hold the world's largest uranium reserves, and Kazakhstan is the largest producer. In India uranium is mined at Jaduguda in Jharkhand and Tummalapalle in Andhra Pradesh. So statement (d) is correct. The Equator crosses Brazil, but not Zimbabwe, the Philippines or Nigeria. Chandigarh (76.8°E), Delhi (77.2°E), Mangalore (74.9°E) and Chennai (80.3°E) lie on different longitudes. Dulhasti and Baglihar are on the Chenab, but Tulbul is on the Jhelum and Nathpa Jhakri on the Satluj.

All three statements are wrong. Magnesite, phosphorite and fluorite are non-metallic minerals. Metallic minerals are ores like bauxite, haematite and copper ore. So statement 1 is wrong. NALCO is India's public-sector aluminium company. It is called one of the lowest-cost producers of bauxite and alumina, not copper. Copper is Hindustan Copper Ltd, so statement 2 is wrong. India's hydropower potential lies mostly in the Himalayan and north-eastern states — Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal, Uttarakhand and J&K. Punjab and Haryana together hold only a small fraction of it, so statement 3 is wrong too.

Carbon content rises with each stage in the formation of coal: peat (the lowest, under about 60%) → lignite or brown coal (60–70%) → bituminous or coking coal (70–85%) → anthracite, and finally graphite, which is very nearly pure carbon. > I Peat → IV Lignite → III Coking coal → II Graphite.