Resources and Development

Why this chapter matters for UPSC: This is Chapter 1 of Contemporary India II, the Class X geography book, in the current rationalised NCERT (Reprint 2026-27). It defines a resource, classifies resources, sets out resource planning and conservation from Gandhi to the Rio Earth Summit, and then covers India's land use, land degradation, soil types and soil conservation. Mains GS1 asks about land and water management and about desertification; Prelims asks about land-use categories, soil properties and conservation methods.

Contemporary hook: The Land Use Statistics at a Glance 2023-24 (provisional) of the Directorate of Economics and Statistics puts India's net sown area at 45.28% of the reporting area and forests at 23.46%. NCERT's chart for 2019-20 shows 45.64%: in sixty years the share of land under crops has barely moved. ISRO's Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas (2021) found 29.77% of India's area undergoing degradation in 2018-19, up from 28.76% in 2003-05. Soil Health Cards issued reached 26.09 crore by 21 July 2026 (Lok Sabha answer).

🧠 First Principles — Read This First

NCERT's definition: anything in our environment that can satisfy our needs is a resource, provided it is technologically accessible, economically feasible and culturally acceptable. Something can be physically present and still not be a resource: oil under the seabed counts only once it can be reached, pays for itself and is acceptable to use.

So resources are not "free gifts of nature". NCERT calls them a function of human activities: people, through technology, turn material into resources, and they build institutions that speed this up. People are themselves an essential part of the resource base.

Land is the resource everything else stands on, and it is finite. India's net sown area has stayed close to 45% of the reporting area since 1960-61 (Table 2), while the population has kept growing (the UN projects 1.48 billion for 1 July 2026, World Population Prospects 2024, medium variant). Soil is slower still: NCERT notes that it takes millions of years to form soil a few centimetres deep. That is why the chapter moves from "what is a resource" to planning, conservation and the protection of land and soil.

PART 1 — Quick Reference

Table 1: How Resources Are Classified

The current book keeps only the four bases and the names of the types. The third column is the older edition's text, useful for answers but no longer in the CBSE book.

Source: NCERT, Contemporary India II, Chapter 1, Reprint 2026-27, p. 1; 2020-21 edition, "Types of Resources".

Table 2: India's Land Use, Three Snapshots (% of reporting area)

The 2023-24 shares are each area divided by the reporting area (the report's summary gives the same 45.28% for net sown area; for the two fallows it prints 4.85% and 3.63%, rounding down). The reporting area is 93.37% of the geographical area of 3,28,755 thousand ha, which is why NCERT says land-use data cover only 93% of the country. Gross cropped area in 2023-24 was 2,17,882 thousand ha, a cropping intensity of 156.8%.

Source: NCERT, Contemporary India II, Fig. 1.4 (data: Directorate of Economics and Statistics, MoA&FW, 2023), Reprint 2026-27, p. 5; Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Land Use Statistics at a Glance 2023-24, Table I.

Table 3: Land Under Relief Features (NCERT)

Source: NCERT, Contemporary India II, Reprint 2026-27, p. 4.

Table 4: Land Degradation by Cause and State (NCERT)

NCERT's general remedies are afforestation, proper management of grazing and of waste lands, and control of mining. It adds that about 95% of our basic needs for food, shelter and clothing come from land.

Source: NCERT, Contemporary India II, Reprint 2026-27, p. 6.

Table 5: The Soils of India (NCERT)

Source: NCERT, Contemporary India II, Reprint 2026-27, pp. 7-9.

Table 6: Kinds of Soil Erosion (NCERT)

Human causes of erosion in NCERT: deforestation, overgrazing, construction and mining. Natural agents: wind, glaciers and water.

Source: NCERT, Contemporary India II, Reprint 2026-27, p. 10.

Table 7: Soil Conservation Methods (NCERT)

Source: NCERT, Contemporary India II, Reprint 2026-27, p. 10.

PART 2 — Concepts & Narrative

What Makes a Resource

NCERT's Fig. 1.1 shows the interdependent relationship between nature, technology and institutions. Human beings interact with nature through technology and create institutions to accelerate economic development. A coal seam means nothing to a society with no mining technology, and little to one whose institutions cannot organise mining and transport.

The current book lists four bases of classification (Table 1): origin, exhaustibility, ownership and status of development. The older edition defined each type with examples; the 2023 rationalisation cut those definitions, though exam questions still use the terms.

Development of Resources: Why "Free Gifts" Thinking Failed

Because resources were believed to be free gifts of nature, people used them indiscriminately. NCERT lists three results:

• depletion of resources to satisfy the greed of a few individuals;
• accumulation of resources in a few hands, dividing society into haves and have-nots, rich and poor;
• global ecological crises: global warming, ozone layer depletion, environmental pollution and land degradation.

Its conclusion is that an equitable distribution of resources is essential for a sustained quality of life and global peace, and that resource planning is essential for the sustainable existence of all forms of life. Sustainable existence is one component of sustainable development.

The Rio Earth Summit and Agenda 21

NCERT's box: in June 1992 more than 100 heads of state met in Rio de Janeiro for the first International Earth Summit, convened to address urgent problems of environmental protection and socio-economic development at the global level. The leaders signed the Declaration on Global Climatic Change and Biological Diversity, endorsed the global Forest Principles and adopted Agenda 21 for achieving sustainable development in the 21st century.

Agenda 21, in NCERT's words, is the declaration signed by world leaders in 1992 at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). It aims to combat environmental damage, poverty and disease through global co-operation on common interests, mutual needs and shared responsibilities. One major objective is that every local government should draw up its own local Agenda 21.

Resource Planning

India has enormous diversity in resources, so planning matters. NCERT's examples: Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh are rich in minerals and coal; Arunachal Pradesh has abundant water but lacks infrastructure; Rajasthan is well endowed with solar and wind energy but short of water; the cold desert of Ladakh is relatively isolated, rich in cultural heritage, but deficient in water, infrastructure and some vital minerals. Hence planning is needed at the national, state, regional and local levels.

NCERT sets out resource planning as three steps:

1. Identification and inventory of resources across regions, by surveying, mapping and qualitative and quantitative estimation.
2. A planning structure with the right technology, skill and institutions to carry out resource development plans.
3. Matching resource development plans with overall national development plans.

India has pursued these goals from the First Five Year Plan onwards. NCERT adds that resources alone do not bring development: some resource-rich regions are economically backward and some resource-poor regions are developed. The history of colonisation shows the point: the colonising countries' higher technology let them exploit the resources of colonies. Resources contribute to development only with appropriate technology and institutional change, and in India development also depends on the quality of human resources and on the people's historical experience.

Conservation of Resources: From Gandhi to Rio

NCERT traces the idea through five steps:

• Gandhi: "There is enough for everybody's need and not for any body's greed." He held greedy and selfish individuals and the exploitative nature of modern technology responsible for resource depletion, and wanted production by the masses in place of mass production.
• Club of Rome, 1968: advocated resource conservation in a systematic way for the first time at the international level.
• E. F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful: presented Gandhian philosophy again. NCERT dates it 1974; the book was first published in 1973 (Blond & Briggs).
• Brundtland Commission Report, 1987: introduced the concept of sustainable development as a means of resource conservation; published as Our Common Future.
• Earth Summit, Rio de Janeiro, 1992.

Land Resources and Land Use

We live on land, work on it and move across it; NCERT calls it a natural resource of utmost importance and stresses that it is "an asset of a finite magnitude". About 43% of India's land is plain, 30% mountain and 27% plateau (Table 3).

NCERT groups land use into five classes:

1. Forests.
2. Land not available for cultivation: (a) barren and waste land; (b) land put to non-agricultural uses (buildings, roads, factories).
3. Other uncultivated land, excluding fallow: (a) permanent pastures and grazing land; (b) land under miscellaneous tree crops and groves (not included in net sown area); (c) culturable waste land, left uncultivated for more than five agricultural years.
4. Fallow lands: (a) current fallow, left uncultivated for one agricultural year or less; (b) other than current fallow, left uncultivated for the past one to five agricultural years.
5. Net sown area: the physical extent of land on which crops are sown and harvested.

Land use depends on physical factors (topography, climate, soil) and human ones (population density, technological capability, culture and traditions). The total geographical area is 3.28 million sq km, but land-use data cover only 93% of it: reporting is incomplete for most north-eastern States except Assam, and parts of Jammu and Kashmir occupied by Pakistan and China have not been surveyed.

The share of net sown area varies sharply between States: over 80% in Punjab and Haryana, under 10% in Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Manipur and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (NCERT). Most land under fallow other than current fallow is poor or costly to farm, so it is cropped once or twice in about two to three years. NCERT says that if these lands are counted, net sown area comes to about 54% of the reporting area. In NCERT's own 2019-20 chart, net sown area plus other fallow is 49.3%, and adding current fallow as well gives 53.8%, which matches the "about 54%".

NCERT's exercise asks why land under forest has not increased much since 1960-61. Its own chart shows forest rising from 18.11% to 23.41% of the reporting area, still well short of the 33% goal (below). The other large shifts are visible in Table 2: land under non-agricultural uses almost doubled, from 4.95% to 9.06%, while barren and unculturable land fell from 12.01% to 5.40% and culturable waste from 6.23% to 3.90%. Permanent pasture also shrank, from 4.71% to 3.42%, and NCERT asks how India's huge cattle population can be fed on it. The latest year, 2023-24, continues the pattern: non-agricultural uses 9.30%, net sown area 45.28%.

Forest area is far below the 33% of geographical area set out in the National Forest Policy (1952), which NCERT calls essential for ecological balance; the livelihood of millions who live on forest fringes depends on forests.

Land Degradation and Conservation Measures

Continuous use of land without conservation has caused land degradation. NCERT notes that human activities have not only degraded land but also quickened natural forces of damage. It names deforestation, overgrazing, mining and quarrying, then maps causes to States (Table 4): mining in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha; overgrazing in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra; over-irrigation, with waterlogging, salinity and alkalinity, in Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh. Dust from grinding limestone, calcite and soapstone, and industrial effluents, add to it.

These examples run well beyond the desert. Punjab's degradation comes from too much water, Jharkhand's and Odisha's from mining in forested, rainy country. Degradation follows land use as much as climate.

Soil as a Resource

Soil is the medium of plant growth and supports many living organisms; NCERT calls it a living system. Relief, parent rock, climate, vegetation and other forms of life, and time are the factors of soil formation. Changes in temperature, running water, wind, glaciers and decomposers all contribute, along with chemical and organic changes in the soil. Soil contains organic matter (humus) and inorganic material.

NCERT's soil profile (Fig. 1.5) has four layers, from the top: topsoil; subsoil of weathered rock, sand, silt and clay; substratum of weathered parent rock material; and unweathered parent bedrock at the base.

Indian soils are classified by the factors that formed them and by colour, thickness, texture, age, and chemical and physical properties. NCERT describes six types (Table 5). Alluvial soil is the most widely spread and important, and the whole northern plain is made of it.

Soil Erosion and Soil Conservation

Soil erosion is the denudation of the soil cover and its subsequent washing down. Formation and erosion normally balance; deforestation, overgrazing, construction and mining upset the balance, while wind, glaciers and water erode naturally. Running water cuts gullies in clayey soil and turns land into bad land, called ravines in the Chambal basin. Sheet erosion washes topsoil off large areas of a slope, and wind erosion lifts loose soil off flat or sloping ground. Ploughing up and down a slope makes channels for quick runoff.

The remedies (Table 7): contour ploughing on slopes, terraces in the western and central Himalaya, strip cropping and shelter belts against wind. Shelter belts have contributed significantly to stabilising sand dunes and the desert in western India.

PART 3 — UPSC Integration

Frames for Mains Answers

• Land and water management reduces misery: India farms about 45% of its reporting area, a share unchanged since 1960-61 (Table 2), so output must come from productivity and conservation, not new land. Link degradation to its causes by region (Table 4), cite ISRO's 29.77% figure, and give remedies (soil conservation, grazing control, treated effluents, the 26 million ha restoration target).
• Desertification without climatic boundaries: use NCERT's own map of causes. Over-irrigation in Punjab and Haryana (waterlogging and salinity), mining in Jharkhand and Odisha, overgrazing in Gujarat and Maharashtra: degradation follows land use in humid and dry regions alike. Water erosion is the largest process nationally (ISRO, 2021).
• Resources and development: the nature-technology-institutions triangle, NCERT's resource-rich but backward regions, and colonisation as the historical case that technology decides who benefits from resources.

Exam Strategy

Prelims fact-traps:

• Culturable waste land: more than 5 agricultural years uncultivated. Other fallow: 1 to 5 years. Current fallow: 1 year or less.
• Net sown area is about 45% of the reporting area (45.64% in NCERT's 2019-20 chart; 45.28% in 2023-24). NCERT's "about 54%" includes fallow land.
• Land-use data cover 93% of the area, not 100%.
• Relief: plains 43%, mountains 30%, plateaus 27%.
• Bangar (old, kankar) vs Khadar (new, more fertile).
• Black soil: rich in calcium carbonate, magnesium, potash and lime; poor in phosphoric content.
• Laterite: pH below 6.0; tea, coffee and cashew.
• Arid soil: kankar in the lower horizons restricts infiltration.
• Terrace farming: western and central Himalaya (NCERT's MCQ answer is Uttarakhand).
• Club of Rome 1968; Brundtland 1987; Rio 1992; Small is Beautiful 1973 (NCERT: 1974).

Mains answers: for land and water management, desertification and resource planning, give causes by region with named States, a dated national figure, and remedies matched to causes. NCERT's State-wise lists in Tables 4 and 5 are the fastest source of examples.

Practice Questions

Practice (UPSC-pattern, not past papers). Questions 1 to 3 are NCERT's own exercise MCQs.

Prelims:

1. Which one of the following is the main cause of land degradation in Punjab?
   (a) Intensive cultivation
   (b) Deforestation
   (c) Over irrigation
   (d) Overgrazing

2. In which one of the following states is terrace cultivation practised?
   (a) Punjab
   (b) Plains of Uttar Pradesh
   (c) Haryana
   (d) Uttarakhand

3. In which of the following states is black soil predominantly found?
   (a) Uttar Pradesh
   (b) Maharashtra
   (c) Rajasthan
   (d) Jharkhand

4. In NCERT's land-use classification, land left uncultivated for more than five agricultural years is:
   (a) Current fallow
   (b) Fallow other than current fallow
   (c) Culturable waste land
   (d) Barren and unculturable land

5. Consider the following statements about laterite soil:
   

   1. It is acidic, with a pH below 6.0.
      
   2. It results from intense leaching under heavy rain.
      
   3. It is rich in plant nutrients wherever it occurs.
      Which of the statements given above are correct?
      (a) 1 and 2 only
      (b) 2 and 3 only
      (c) 1 and 3 only
      (d) 1, 2 and 3

6. According to Land Use Statistics at a Glance 2023-24 (provisional), India's net sown area is closest to what share of the reporting area?
   (a) 35%
   (b) 45%
   (c) 54%
   (d) 60%

7. Shelter belts mainly help to:
   (a) stop gully erosion in ravines
   (b) break the force of the wind and stabilise sand dunes
   (c) hold water on steep hill slopes
   (d) reduce salinity in canal-irrigated land

Mains (practice):

1. Explain the land use pattern in India. Why has the land under forest not increased much since 1960-61? (NCERT Ex. 3(i), about 120 words)
2. How has technical and economic development led to more consumption of resources? (NCERT Ex. 3(ii), about 120 words)
3. "Land degradation in India is not confined to its dry regions." Discuss with examples of causes and remedies. (practice, 150 words)

Short answers (NCERT Ex. 2, about 30 words): black soil covers the plateaus of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh (and Saurashtra and Malwa), and its main crop is cotton. The river deltas of the eastern coast have alluvial soil: very fertile, a mix of sand, silt and clay, with adequate potash, phosphoric acid and lime. In hilly areas, erosion is controlled by contour ploughing and terrace cultivation, with afforestation to hold the slopes.

📦 Revision Capsule

Sources

• NCERT, Contemporary India II, Textbook in Geography for Class X, Chapter 1 "Resources and Development", Reprint 2026-27 — jess101.pdf; 2020-21 edition for the removed definitions in Table 1 (the whole book as one zip file, as archived on 9 October 2021: Wayback Machine).
• Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare, Land Use Statistics at a Glance 2023-24 (provisional), 2025 — Wayback copy of the desagri.gov.in PDF.
• Space Applications Centre, ISRO, Desertification and Land Degradation Atlas of India, 2021 — vedas.sac.gov.in PDF.
• PIB (Ministry of Rural Development), "Wastelands Atlas of India 2019", 5 November 2019 — PIB.
• PIB (MoEFCC), "Land Degradation and Desertification", Lok Sabha written reply, 7 August 2023 — PIB.
• PIB (MoEFCC), India State of Forest Report 2023 released, 21 December 2024 — PIB.
• Lok Sabha Unstarred Question No. 360, "Soil Health Card Scheme", answered 21 July 2026 — Lok Sabha PDF.
• World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future, chapter 2, 1987 (UN A/42/427, 4 August 1987) — UN PDF; UN Documents mirror, chapter 2.
• UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, "Agenda 21" — sdgs.un.org; UN General Assembly, Transforming our world, A/RES/70/1, 25 September 2015 — UN PDF.
• UN DESA Population Division, World Population Prospects 2024, demographic indicators (medium variant) — population.un.org/wpp.
• NCERT, India: People and Economy, Class XII, Chapter 9 "Planning and Sustainable Development in Indian Context", 2021-22 edition, for Ehrlich (1968) and The Limits to Growth (1972).