Minerals and Energy Resources of Rajasthan

This is the largest single theme in Rajasthan Geography — fourteen of the seventy-eight questions across six papers — and almost all of it is recall. Mineral to locality, locality to district. There is no reasoning shortcut, which makes it the cheapest block of marks in the unit and the one most often left until last.

Rajasthan is the richest state in India for variety of minerals. The state's own count is 82 varieties occurring and 57 currently under commercial production (Economic Review 2025-26, Government of Rajasthan).

This chapter is built from state government sources first. The Economic Review 2025-26 and the Budget 2026-27 supply the numbers, the Rajasthan Mineral Policy 2024 and the Department of Mines and Geology supply the institutions and reserves, and central primary sources — the Indian Bureau of Mines and MNRE — are used where the state does not publish the figure or where a national ranking is in question. Every table below names the document it came from.

Quote the state's figure, and know why other numbers circulate. The Indian Bureau of Mines put commercial production at about 50 minerals in 2020-21; the Rajasthan Mineral Policy 2024 counts 58 under extraction and sets a target of 70 by 2046-47. All three are government sources and none is wrong. They are counts taken in different years on slightly different definitions, and the number has been rising. If an option offers a bare count with no year attached, treat the year as the missing half of the question.

0. Metallic and non-metallic: the division the syllabus is written on

The syllabus line for this topic is "Minerals — Metallic and Non-Metallic", and the state's own department sorts its minerals exactly that way. The Department of Mines and Geology publishes two separate mineral inventories, and what sits in each is the answer to the classification question.

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Department of Mines and Geology, "Metallic Minerals" and "Non Metalic Minerals" (mines.rajasthan.gov.in). The lists above are the department's own headings on those two pages, not a classification imposed here.

Note what the split does not do. Lignite is filed as non-metallic rather than in a separate fuel class, and gypsum, potash and rock phosphate sit there too, though they are usually taught as chemical or fertiliser minerals. If a question asks which class a Rajasthan mineral belongs to, the department's own two pages are the defensible authority, and they recognise only two boxes.

The second cut is legal rather than chemical: major and minor. The Rajasthan Mineral Policy 2024 states that 22 major minerals and 36 minor minerals are produced in the state. Twenty-two and thirty-six make fifty-eight, which is the policy's own count of minerals under extraction, the figure this chapter already carries. The split is worth holding because it is the arithmetic behind a number the reader has already met.

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Department of Mines and Geology, Rajasthan Mineral Policy 2024, Preamble.

A "22 major plus 35 minor" split circulates in preparation notes and is wrong by one. The policy prints 36 minor. Twenty-two plus thirty-five gives 57, which is a real number from a different document, the Economic Review's count of minerals under commercial production. Two counts in wide use, 57 and 58, differ because they come from two documents taken in different years. Attach the document to the number and the confusion disappears.

1. Sole producer — the highest-value fact in the topic

Two government sources give sole-producer lists, and they are not identical. Learn the longer one and understand the overlap.

GovtSources: Government of Rajasthan, Economic Review 2025-26, Figure 5.8 (sole-producer panel); and Indian Bureau of Mines, Ministry of Mines, Indian Minerals Yearbook 2022, Part I (61st edition), Rajasthan state review.

Three names appear on both lists: zinc ores, selenite and wollastonite. Those three are the safe core and the ones to answer with if a question forces a short list.

The differences are explainable rather than contradictory. The Bureau writes lead and zinc ores as one entry where the state writes zinc ores; and the state adds calcite, silver and natural gypsum, which the Bureau's own text describes as "almost the entire production" of silver rather than the whole of it. A near-monopoly and a monopoly are being rounded differently by two departments, which is worth knowing before an option turns on the word only.

Safest formulation for a written answer: Rajasthan is the sole producer of selenite, wollastonite and zinc ores, and accounts for almost all of India's silver.

Two qualifications that decide questions.

Copper is not on that list, and it is the standard trap. Khetri makes copper the mineral most associated with Rajasthan in the popular mind, and the state is a major copper producer — but Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand produce it too. Sole producer and major producer are different claims, and RPSC has set exactly this.

Rajasthan was the sole producer of garnet (gem) only till 2004-05. A superlative with an expiry date — true of the past, false of the present.

2. Share of India's resources — and why this is not production

The Indian Bureau of Mines gives Rajasthan's share of India's total resources mineral by mineral, as on 1 April 2020.

GovtSource: Indian Bureau of Mines, Ministry of Mines, Indian Minerals Yearbook 2022, Part I (61st edition) — shares of India total resources as on 1 April 2020. The same percentages are reproduced by the Government of Rajasthan as Figure 5.8 of the Economic Review 2025-26, with the one mislabelling noted below.

Potash at 94% tops the list and almost nobody knows it — it beats lead and zinc, which is the answer most candidates would give.

Now the distinction that the whole table turns on. These are shares of resources in the ground, not of production. Rajasthan holds 89% of India's lead-zinc resources and is its sole producer — both true, but they are different statements. It holds 54% of copper resources and is not the sole producer at all. A question saying Rajasthan "produces 94% of India's potash" is wrong; it holds 94% of the resource.

And potash proves the point at its sharpest. The Rajasthan Mineral Policy 2024 puts the state's potash resource at 20.5 billion tonnes and its production at nil. Gold is the same: a resource of 126 million tonnes and no production. Two minerals where Rajasthan's share of the ground is enormous and its share of output is zero — which is the single cleanest way to fix the resource-versus-production distinction in memory.

One label to get right

The Economic Review 2025-26 reproduces this same table as its Figure 5.8, with every percentage identical — independent confirmation from the state of the Bureau's figures. But it prints the 72% entry as dolomite, where the Indian Bureau of Mines writes diatomite.

The Bureau is the originating source and this page follows it: the 72% figure belongs to diatomite. Note the trap, because material copied from the Economic Review carries the wrong mineral.

They are not near-relations that got muddled. They are different substances with different chemistry, different origins and different uses.

GovtPrimaryMineral descriptions are standard mineralogy; the Rajasthan occurrence list for dolomite is from the Indian Minerals Yearbook 2022 (Ajmer, Alwar, Bhilwara, Chittorgarh, Sikar and Udaipur).

One is fossil algae, the other is rock. If an option pairs the 72% share with dolomite, the share is being attached to the wrong mineral — and note separately that the department's own occurrence lists do place dolomite in Ajmer, Alwar, Bhilwara, Chittorgarh, Sikar and Udaipur, so the mineral itself is genuinely a Rajasthan mineral. It is the percentage that has been misfiled, not the mineral invented.

3. Reserves — the deposits the state department itself names

The Department of Mines and Geology publishes its own list of important mineral discoveries with reserve figures and grades. These are the deposits the department chose to highlight, which makes them the likeliest to be examined.

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Department of Mines and Geology, "Important Mineral Discoveries at a Glance" (mines.rajasthan.gov.in). Reserve figures and grades are as published by the department; it does not state an assessment date for them, so treat them as departmental reserve estimates rather than a dated survey.

The department's own words about Rampura–Agucha are the ones to carry: it is the country's richest and largest single deposit of lead, zinc and silver, and it is amenable to open-cast mining. That last clause explains the economics — an open-cast orebody of that grade is why one deposit in Bhilwara underpins India's entire zinc industry.

Three Sirohi entries in a row is not an accident. Sirohi is the state's base-metal district after the Bhilwara belt, and Deri, Basantgarh–Goliya and Pipela are the reason.

Limestone and lignite, where the numbers get large

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Department of Mines and Geology, "Important Mineral Discoveries at a Glance".

The department places lignite in five districts — Bikaner, Barmer, Nagaur, Jaisalmer and Jalore. Note that Pali is absent from the department's list even though it appears in occurrence tables elsewhere; on a question asking for lignite districts, the five are the defensible answer.

The named lignite localities, by district:

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Department of Mines and Geology, locality-wise lignite listing.

Barsinghsar in Bikaner is worth adding to the standard list — it carries a lignite-fired power station and is the field most often missing from preparation notes that stop at Palana, Kapurdi and Kasnau.

4. The mineral-to-district map

This is the block that has to be learnt. From the Indian Bureau of Mines:

GovtSource: Indian Bureau of Mines, Ministry of Mines, Indian Minerals Yearbook 2022, Part I (61st edition), Rajasthan state review — mineral-wise district occurrence lists. District names are as printed there; where the 2023 reorganisation has since split a district, the parent name is retained.

Three of those rows are answerable because the list is short. Mica is Ajmer and Bhilwara only. Pyrite is Sikar only. Flux-grade limestone is Jodhpur and Nagaur only. A mineral confined to one or two districts is a gift, and these three are the ones to hold first.

And note the two Daribas. Dariba in Alwar is copper; Rajpura–Dariba in Rajsamand is lead–zinc. Same name, different district, different metal — which is exactly the kind of pair an examiner builds an option on.

One of the three "only" claims above needs a smaller word. The Bureau of Mines lists mica in Ajmer and Bhilwara, and that is a record of where the Bureau notes occurrences, not a declaration that mica occurs nowhere else. The Department of Mines and Geology's own non-metallic inventory does not cover mica at all, so the state publishes no competing list to test it against. Pyrite in Sikar and flux-grade limestone in Jodhpur and Nagaur stand on exactly the same kind of evidence.

What this changes in practice is small and real. On a matching question, answer Ajmer or Bhilwara for mica. On a statement question built on the word only, remember that the evidence is an occurrence list, and that RPSC has keyed mica localities outside both districts. A short list is a strong prior, not a proof.

Named mines RPSC has actually used

GovtSources: Indian Bureau of Mines, Indian Minerals Yearbook 2022, Part I, Rajasthan state review; and Government of Rajasthan, Department of Mines and Geology, locality listings. Localities are grouped here by the mineral RPSC has actually keyed them to, so this table follows the papers rather than any single source list.

The iron-ore trio share a pattern worth using: all three are in the north-eastern Aravalli. A locality offered from the south or west is the odd one out — which is how RPSC set it, with Talwara as the answer that is not iron ore.

The department's own locality lists

The tables above stop at the district. The Department of Mines and Geology publishes the localities, and because RPSC's mineral questions are overwhelmingly locality-to-mineral matches, this is where the marks are.

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Department of Mines and Geology, "Metallic Minerals" and "Non Metalic Minerals". The department's pages are undated and still describe the state as having 33 districts, so read the district names as pre-2023.

Two of those rows close questions this chapter previously left open. Mando-ki-Pal is fluorite, stated by the department in as many words, which settles the locality RPSC used in 2021 as a wrong pair with feldspar. Kherwara is soapstone as well as asbestos, so either pairing is defensible on departmental lists, and a question offering both needs the rest of the option to decide it.

Degana deserves a sentence of its own, and a correction. It is the state's tungsten deposit and India's best-known one, with lode, alluvial, stock-work and low-grade granite resources set out separately by the department. But the department also records that Degana and Balda "were the only operative mines producing meagre quantities of concentrate" and that they "have been closed down" on grounds of economic non-viability. Degana is where India's tungsten is, not where India's tungsten is mined. A present-tense question about tungsten production has no Rajasthan answer.

Copper and lead-zinc below the headline deposits

The three lead-zinc names in the map above are the giants. The department lists many more, and recent papers have been keying the smaller ones.

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Department of Mines and Geology, "Metallic Minerals", the department's own copper and lead-zinc-silver deposit tables, with resources in million tonnes. The same page gives the state's copper resources as 809.09 Mt and its lead-zinc resources as 629.92 Mt, and describes Rajasthan as the second leading producer of copper concentrate, contributing 41% of national output.

Madan Kudan at 85.60 million tonnes is the largest single copper deposit on the department's list, and with Kolihan and Akawali it makes the Khetri belt in Jhunjhunu a cluster rather than a point. Sindesar Kalan East, at 77.78 million tonnes, is the largest lead-zinc entry after Rampura-Agucha, and Rajsamand carries seven of the twelve lead-zinc deposits the department names.

Where the silver actually comes out is worth stating exactly, because this chapter describes Rajasthan as producing almost all of India's silver. The Indian Bureau of Mines records that the silver is recovered at the Chanderiya lead-zinc smelter in Chittorgarh, as a by-product from lead concentrates produced in Rajasthan. The metal is a smelter product, not a mine product, which is why silver has no mine of its own on any of these lists.

Gold, and where the state says it is

Rajasthan's gold resource sits overwhelmingly in one belt. The department estimates 118.88 million tonnes of gold ore resources in the state, of which 105.81 million tonnes is the Bhukhia-Jagpura-Delwara belt in Banswara, assessed at a 0.50 gram-per-tonne cut-off. Gold has also been proved with copper at Dhani-Basri (Dausa), Khera-Mundiawas (Alwar) and Dokan (Sikar), and is extracted as a by-product in the Khetri copper belt.

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Department of Mines and Geology, "Metallic Minerals". Three official gold figures are in circulation and all three belong here: the department's 118.88 Mt, the 126 Mt of the Rajasthan Mineral Policy 2024 which section 2 already carries, and 125.91 Mt in the Indian Minerals Yearbook 2022 as on 1 April 2020. The department's page carries no assessment date; the Bureau's table does.

This closes the loop on the resource-versus-production point. Banswara holds nearly nine-tenths of the state's gold ore and produces none of it. Bhukhia is the name to carry, and it belongs to the same district as the manganese localities in the table above.

Emerald and gem garnet, where the department is precise

The state's emerald occurs along a single named belt. The department places it in a 221 km belt running from Gam Gurha in Rajsamand to Bubani and Muhami in Ajmer, with Rajgarh, Tikhi and Kalaguman in Rajsamand as the important localities, and adds that the occurrences are highly sporadic. The Indian Bureau of Mines lists emerald for the same two districts, which is independent confirmation of the belt's ends.

Garnet needs a district correction that this chapter can now make. The department places the gem variety in Tonk, in an 11 km belt from Kalyanpur to Rajmahal, and the abrasive variety in Bhilwara and Rajsamand. Rajmahal is therefore a Tonk locality, while Janakpura and Sarwar, the pair RPSC keyed in 2016, are in Ajmer. One mineral, two varieties, two districts, and the papers have used both.

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Department of Mines and Geology, "Non Metalic Minerals"; emerald districts confirmed against Indian Bureau of Mines, Indian Minerals Yearbook 2022, Part I.

The clay and silica group

These are the minerals whose national resource shares this chapter already gives and whose localities it did not, and they are the ones the recent papers have been setting.

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Department of Mines and Geology, "Non Metalic Minerals"; ball-clay districts from Indian Bureau of Mines, Indian Minerals Yearbook 2022, Part I. The department gives one combined locality list for ball, fire and china clay and does not always say which clay is at which village, so the localities above are clay localities in general except where a grade is named.

Silica sand and siliceous earth are different minerals in adjoining districts and their names look alike. Silica sand's flagship is Mudh-Gudha in Bikaner; siliceous earth's are Mandai and Dharvi Khurd in the Barmer-Jaisalmer belt. Both pairs have been set as matching questions, and confusing them costs a mark each time.

5. Minor minerals, and the mining economy

Minor minerals are where Rajasthan's mining actually happens by volume, and they are under-prepared because the resource tables do not show them.

The Rajasthan Mineral Policy 2024 lists the state's minor minerals: granite, marble, sandstone, masonry stone, bajri, limestone (burning), limestone (dimensional), gypsum, ball clay, feldspar, silica sand, quartz, soapstone, china clay, ochres and dolomite.

Four of them carry the revenue. Masonry stone, granite, marble and sandstone contribute the largest share of the state's minor-mineral revenue — a fact worth holding because the famous minerals of the resource tables, potash and lead-zinc and wollastonite, are not on that list at all.

What each mineral is actually for

Distribution answers half of a question and use answers the other half, and the use half is where a five-mark Mains answer runs out. The Rajasthan Mineral Policy 2024 prints the state's own demand drivers alongside its resource and production figures, which makes the uses quotable rather than assumed.

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Department of Mines and Geology, Rajasthan Mineral Policy 2024, "Key Major Minerals in Rajasthan". Production figures are for FY2022-23 and are the policy's own; the policy attributes the underlying data to the Indian Minerals Yearbook and to DMG Rajasthan. Mt is million tonnes, BT billion tonnes.

Read the copper and lead rows together and the mining half of this chapter connects to the energy half. Copper is wanted for transmission networks and lead for batteries, so the state's base metals are inputs to the same renewable build-out that section 7 measures in megawatts. That is the sentence which turns a list of minerals into an argument about the state's economy.

The minor minerals carry the tonnage, and the policy prints those too.

GovtSource: Rajasthan Mineral Policy 2024, "Key Minor Minerals in Rajasthan". Sandstone's resource is printed there as an area, 35,000 sq km, not as a tonnage.

Masonry stone at 128.7 million tonnes is ten times marble's output and nobody memorises it. That single row is why masonry stone, granite, marble and sandstone carry the state's minor-mineral revenue, and why the famous minerals of the resource tables do not.

On the department's own account, Ajmer is the leading feldspar producer in the state, followed by Bhilwara, Rajsamand, Pali, Tonk and Sikar. That is a "leading producer" statement and not a percentage, and the department publishes no district-wise production table behind it.

The scale of the operation

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Economic Review 2025-26 (published with the State Budget 2026-27). Figures marked "up to December" are nine-month provisional figures for 2025-26.

Note the ratio. Minor-mineral leases outnumber major-mineral leases four to one, and quarry licences outnumber both. Mining leases are now granted through e-auction.

In 2024-25 Rajasthan auctioned 34 major mineral blocks, the highest of any state in the country. That is the sentence to carry into an answer on mineral administration.

Revenue

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Economic Review 2025-26 (published with the State Budget 2026-27). Figures marked "up to December" are nine-month provisional figures for 2025-26.

Quote both numbers together or neither. The collection figure is nine months of a twelve-month target, so reading it as a shortfall is a mistake — it is a part-year figure, and the Economic Review presents it as such.

District Mineral Foundation Trust

The DMF is a non-profit trust set up in districts affected by mining, to work for the benefit of people and areas affected by mining operations. It is a statutory creation under the MMDR Act, funded by a levy on lease-holders, and it is the standard Mains hook for "does mining benefit the mined district?"

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Economic Review 2025-26 (published with the State Budget 2026-27). Figures marked "up to December" are nine-month provisional figures for 2025-26. DMF is a statutory trust under the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957.

Sanctioned ₹9,393 crore against ₹5,928 crore spent, and 13,612 of 21,993 works complete. Roughly six works in ten finished and roughly six rupees in ten spent — a consistent pair, and a more honest thing to say about DMFT than either "it works" or "it does not."

Illegal mining

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Economic Review 2025-26 (published with the State Budget 2026-27). Figures marked "up to December" are nine-month provisional figures for 2025-26.

7,335 cases produced 831 FIRs. About one case in nine becomes a criminal complaint; the rest are dealt with by penalty and seizure. That ratio is the useful detail — it shows the enforcement regime is primarily financial rather than criminal, which is exactly the observation a Mains answer on illegal mining needs.

Exploration

Under the Intensive Mineral Survey and Prospecting Scheme (IPS), the department ran 34 projects for geological investigation in 2025-26. Up to December 2025:

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Economic Review 2025-26 (published with the State Budget 2026-27). Figures marked "up to December" are nine-month provisional figures for 2025-26.

The three mapping scales narrow deliberately — regional survey over the widest ground, then regional mapping, then detailed mapping over a fraction of it, then drilling at a point. That funnel is how mineral exploration works, and the four figures show it in one state in one year.

6. Institutions, policy and targets

This section is the one most often missing from preparation notes, and RPSC's syllabus explicitly rewards it.

Department of Mines and Geology (DMG)

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Department of Mines and Geology, "About DMG" (mines.rajasthan.gov.in). Staff strength is as published by the department and undated; treat it as indicative rather than current to the day. Note that the same page still describes "Vision 2020" as the department's latest strategy, which the Rajasthan Mineral Policy 2024 has since superseded.

Udaipur, not Jaipur. The mines department is one of the few state departments headquartered outside the capital, and that is precisely the sort of thing an option inverts.

Its stated functions run from search and prospecting, through mineral administration (grant of leases, collection of revenue and dead rent), to promoting value addition through mineral-based industry, R&D on beneficiation and low-grade ore upgradation, environmental protection and restoration of mined-out areas, export promotion, and even construction of approach roads to mines and quarries.

Rajasthan State Mines and Minerals Limited (RSMML)

The two companies that mine the metals

RSMML mines industrial minerals. The metals this chapter is built around are mined by two central public sector companies, and neither has appeared on this page so far.

Hindustan Copper Limited was incorporated in 1967 under the administrative control of the Ministry of Mines, and holds copper mines at Malanjkhand in Madhya Pradesh, Khetri in Rajasthan and Ghatsila in Jharkhand. Its Rajasthan unit is the Khetri Copper Complex at Khetrinagar, Jhunjhunu, with a copper cathode capacity of about 31,000 tonnes a year. The three-state footprint is exactly why copper is not on Rajasthan's sole-producer list, and it is worth knowing that one company operates all three.

Hindustan Zinc Limited runs the lead-zinc-silver chain, and its plants are the ones to place by district:

GovtSources: Indian Bureau of Mines, Ministry of Mines, Indian Minerals Yearbook 2022, Part I, Table 5, principal mineral-based industries in Rajasthan; and Ministry of Mines, Government of India, company profile of Hindustan Copper Limited. Capacities are in thousand tonnes per year as printed by the Bureau.

Chanderiya is the one to fix. It is in Chittorgarh, it is the largest of the three smelters, and it is where the silver is recovered, 168 tonnes a year against the lead and zinc beside it. Dariba appears here for the third time in this chapter, after the Alwar copper locality and the Rajsamand lead-zinc mine. Two of the three Daribas are in Rajsamand and mean the same thing; the Alwar one is copper.

One date about RSMML is on record and worth having. The Rajasthan State Mineral Development Corporation (RSMDC) was amalgamated into RSMML by an order of the Department of Company Affairs, Government of India, S.O. 207(E) dated 19 February 2003, effective from 20 February 2003, under section 396 of the Companies Act, 1956. The four Strategic Business Units this chapter lists were set up after that amalgamation, as part of the corporate restructuring it triggered. The four SBUs are the shape of a merger, which is why there are exactly four and why they sit in four different cities.

PrimarySource: Rajasthan State Mines and Minerals Limited, "Profile" (rsmm.com), the company's own account of the amalgamation, quoting the Government of India order number and its gazette date.

A premier public sector enterprise of the Government of Rajasthan, engaged in mining and marketing of industrial minerals, with its corporate office at Udaipur.

Its four Strategic Business Units and Profit Centres are the examinable fact, because each is a mineral tied to a place:

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Economic Review 2025-26 (published with the State Budget 2026-27). Figures marked "up to December" are nine-month provisional figures for 2025-26. RSMML operational revenue is from Table 5.7.

Rock phosphate alone is more than two-thirds of RSMML's operational revenue, and gypsum is almost nothing — ₹3.59 crore against ₹911.48 crore. A company known for four minerals earns from one.

Note also that RSMML owns generation: 106.3 MW of wind and 5 MW of solar. A minerals corporation running a wind fleet is a small fact that connects this chapter's two halves.

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Economic Review 2025-26 (published with the State Budget 2026-27). Figures marked "up to December" are nine-month provisional figures for 2025-26. 2024-25 revenue and profit figures are described by the Review as unaudited, and 2025-26 figures as budgeted — do not quote either as an audited result.

Rajasthan Mineral Policy 2024 — the six targets

These are numeric, dated and quotable, which makes them ideal Mains material.

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Department of Mines and Geology, Rajasthan Mineral Policy 2024, sections 4 (Vision) and 5 (Targets).

Target 5 is the one to memorise if only one is memorised: mining is 3.4% of Rajasthan's GSDP in 2023-24, headed for 5% by 2029-30 and 8% by 2046-47. It gives a Mains answer a base year, a figure and a trajectory in a single line.

Target 3 contains the idea worth explaining. "Pre-embedded clearances" means the state obtains forest, environment and land clearances before auctioning a block, so the winning bidder receives a mine that can actually be worked rather than a licence to begin a clearance battle. The policy pairs it with a "Land Bank" of designated areas to assist with forest-land diversion. Delay in clearances, not shortage of minerals, is the binding constraint the policy is written against — and that framing is what turns a list of targets into an argument.

The policy also commits to emphasis on exploration and auction of precious, strategic and critical minerals in coordination with the Central Government, and to assisting the Centre in carving more Petroleum Exploration Licence (PEL) blocks for auction.

Rajasthan M-Sand Policy 2024

Manufactured sand as a substitute for river sand (bajri) — the policy exists because bajri mining from riverbeds is the state's most litigated environmental problem.

Incentives: 50% royalty exemption and relief on charges for overburden-dump utilisation · 75% state tax reimbursement for 10 years · 100% electricity duty exemption for 7 years · 75% stamp duty exemption · 50% reimbursement of employer EPF and ESI contributions for domiciled employees.

The implementation lever is procurement, not persuasion: the policy mandates a gradual increase in M-sand use in government projects, targeting 50% by 2028-29.

Up to December 2025, 38 M-sand plots and 10 overburden-dump mining plots had been allotted.

Note the environmental logic, which is what a Mains answer needs: M-sand can be made from overburden dumps and from construction-and-demolition waste, so the policy simultaneously reduces riverbed extraction and consumes mining waste. One instrument addressing two problems is a strong example for an answer on sustainable mining.

Critical minerals — and Rajasthan's first

The MMDR Act, 1957 was amended on 17 August 2023 to notify 24 minerals as Critical and Strategic, empowering the Central Government to auction mining leases and composite licences for them. The revenue accrues to the State Government — a division of powers that is itself examinable.

Tranche V, launched 20 January 2025 and concluded May 2025, auctioned 10 of 15 blocks — and two of them changed Rajasthan's position:

The Jhandawali–Satipura and Jorkian–Satipura–Khunja amalgamated Potash and Halite blocks were the first-ever successful auction of a Potash block by the Government of India, and the first-ever successful auction of a critical and strategic mineral block in the State of Rajasthan.

Read that against section 2 of this page. Rajasthan holds 94% of India's potash resource and produced none of it. These two blocks are the first move to change that, which is why the potash figure is no longer a piece of trivia but a live policy story.

Rajasthan is also among the six states — with Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra — in the first tranche of auction-based Exploration Licences, a regime created for 29 critical and deep-seated minerals in the Seventh Schedule covering gold, copper, lead, zinc, rare earths and platinum-group minerals.

Where the potash actually is

This chapter has argued twice that Rajasthan holds 94% of India's potash and produces none of it. It has not said where in Rajasthan the potash is, and that is the answerable half.

The Department of Mines and Geology places the resource in sub-surface halite-bearing evaporites over about 30,000 sq km, across parts of Sri Ganganagar, Hanumangarh, Bikaner, Churu and Nagaur. Within that ground it identifies eight sub-basins or depocentres, namely Bikaner, Hansera, Arjunsar, Gharsisar, Jaitpur, Satipura, Bharusari and Lakhasar, of which the last four are considered prospective. The resources in the Satipura, Bharusari and Lakhasar sub-basins, at a 3% potassium cut-off, are put at about 2,476.58 million tonnes.

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Department of Mines and Geology, "Non Metalic Minerals". The Indian Bureau of Mines lists potash occurrence for a different pair of districts, Jaisalmer and Nagaur, in the Indian Minerals Yearbook 2022. Both are government lists and they overlap only in Nagaur. The state department's is the wider one and names the depocentres; the Bureau's is a bare occurrence line. Neither is preferred here.

Satipura is the name that matters, because it is in both auctioned blocks. Learn it as "eight depocentres, of which Satipura is one, and Satipura is the one that went to auction."

The Ministry of Mines names the winners, and they make a clean matching pair:

GovtSource: PIB, Ministry of Mines, "Ten Critical and Strategic Mineral Blocks Auctioned in Tranche V, Including 2 Potash Blocks for the First Time in India", 27 May 2025, block-wise table of preferred bidders. The ministry's table gives the state and not the district for either block.

An oil company and a zinc company won India's first potash blocks, and that is not an accident. Potash here lies in deep evaporite beds under the desert, and the skills it needs are drilling and solution mining rather than open-cast metal mining. It also puts Hindustan Zinc on this page a second time, alongside the smelters in section 6.

7. Energy

Coal

Rajasthan's coal is lignite — brown coal, the lowest rank after peat. The state has no bituminous or anthracite coal at all, so any option naming those is wrong by definition.

Lignite fields: Kapurdi and Jalipa (Barmer) · Kasnau and Merta (Nagaur) · Palana, Barsinghsar and Gurha (Bikaner) · Khudi and Ramgarh (Jaisalmer) · Sewara (Jalore).

The Department of Mines and Geology places 5,720 million tonnes of lignite at 78 localities across five districts — Bikaner, Barmer, Nagaur, Jaisalmer and Jalore — as set out in section 3 above. The Mineral Policy 2024 puts the lignite resource at 6.4 billion tonnes and production at 10.3 million tonnes, and names its demand drivers as thermal power and coal gasification.

Lignite's age is set directly and the wrong answer is always the same one. The Department of Mines and Geology states that Rajasthan's lignite occurs in Tertiary formations of middle Eocene age, spread over about 70,000 sq km in the Barmer-Sanchore, Jaisalmer and Nagaur basins. Tertiary, middle Eocene. Not Carboniferous. India's Carboniferous-to-Permian coal is the Gondwana coal of the eastern peninsula, and Rajasthan has none of it, which is the same reason it has no bituminous or anthracite. Rank and age are two separate facts about the same rock, and RPSC has set both.

Which district holds the most lignite is also settled, and it is not the district with the famous field.

GovtSource: Indian Bureau of Mines, Ministry of Mines, Indian Minerals Yearbook 2022, Part I, Table 2, "Reserves/resources of lignite as on 1.4.2023", which the Bureau attributes to the Coal Directory of India, 2022-23. Figures in million tonnes.

Two official lignite totals now sit on this page and neither is wrong. The Department of Mines and Geology gives 5,720 Mt at 78 localities; the Indian Bureau of Mines gives 6,586.24 Mt as on 1 April 2023. The department's page carries no assessment date and the Bureau's table does, which is the whole of the difference worth knowing. Quote the state's figure with the state's document and the Bureau's with the Bureau's, and do not average them.

Barmer holds more lignite than Bikaner and Nagaur together. That is the reserve fact behind RPSC's 2024 answer of Kapurdi, Merta and Kasnau over any option containing Palana. Palana is the oldest and best-known field, and Bikaner is not the largest district by reserves.

The department also names where lignite is worked and where it is burnt. It is exploited at Giral, Kapurdi-Jalipa (Barmer), Palana-Barsinghsar (Bikaner) and Matasukh-Kasnau-Igiyar (Nagaur), and lignite-based power plants operate at Kapurdi-Jalipa, Giral, Palana-Barsinghsar and Gurha (Bikaner).

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Department of Mines and Geology, "Non Metalic Minerals".

Crude oil and gas

Rajasthan is a significant contributor to India's hydrocarbon output, and the two national rankings are the facts to carry.

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Economic Review 2025-26. The all-India figure of 28.70 MMTPA, against which the state share of about 12% is stated, is the Review own comparator.

The four petroliferous basins, and the districts each covers:

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Economic Review 2025-26 (published with the State Budget 2026-27). Figures marked "up to December" are nine-month provisional figures for 2025-26.

Note that these district names are post-reorganisation — Balotra and Phalodi are among the districts created in 2023, and the Economic Review now lists them separately from Barmer and Jodhpur. Older material places the whole Barmer–Sanchor basin in Barmer district.

Production and fields:

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Economic Review 2025-26 (published with the State Budget 2026-27). Figures marked "up to December" are nine-month provisional figures for 2025-26.

The Cairn discoveries were given Sanskrit names, which is precisely why an invented Sanskrit-sounding name works as a distractor — RPSC used "Ganga", which is not a Rajasthan oil field.

Two newer facts worth carrying. Natural gas production began in the Bhakri Tibba block (Oil India) in June 2025 and the Chinnewala Tibba block (ONGC) in August 2025, both in Jaisalmer district. And heavy crude is being evacuated from Baghewala in Jaisalmer — about 2.04 lakh barrels up to December 2025, at roughly 800 barrels per day.

Petroleum revenue, for scale: the sector yielded ₹1,533.74 crore up to December 2025, against ₹2,688.91 crore in the whole of 2024-25 and a peak of ₹4,889.17 crore in 2022-23. Revenue has fallen with crude production, which has declined every year since 2020-21 — from 42.62 million barrels then to 24.88 million in 2024-25. The declining-field story is the more interesting one for a Mains answer than the headline share.

The Rajasthan Refinery — now operating

The Petro Zone beside it

A refinery is a plant; a refinery with a downstream estate is an industrial region, and that is the distinction a Mains answer on Pachpadra turns on.

The Rajasthan Mineral Policy 2024 records that RIICO, the state's industrial development and investment corporation, is developing downstream industries under the Rajasthan Petro Zone adjacent to the refinery project, to convert the complex's polypropylene, polyethylene and aromatics into end products inside the state.

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Department of Mines and Geology, Rajasthan Mineral Policy 2024, "Rajasthan Refinery Project". That passage prints the project cost as ₹72,937 crore, which the Union Cabinet revised to ₹79,459 crore in April 2026; the policy is the older document and its figure is superseded.

The argument to make is about value capture, not about acreage. Rajasthan's crude has left the state for decades and its polymers would too, unless converters sit next to the plant. The Petro Zone is the instrument for keeping the second stage of value inside Balotra, and it is why the state describes the refinery as a cluster rather than a factory.

This is the state's largest industrial project and its status changed in July 2026.

GovtPrimarySources: Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited, HP Refineries and Major Ongoing Projects pages, which state that the refinery section "has been completed and commissioned" and was dedicated to the Nation by the Hon'ble Prime Minister on 4 July 2026; PIB, Cabinet approval of the revised cost of ₹79,459 crore and additional HPCL equity (April 2026); and Government of Rajasthan, Economic Review 2025-26, for the 2018 commencement and the equity split.

What makes it distinctive: it is India's first refinery integrated with a petrochemical complex, it produces BS-VI standard fuels, and it is designed to process 1.5 MMTPA of Rajasthan crude alongside 7.5 MMTPA of imported crude — with flexibility to take up to 2.5 MMTPA of local crude. It is the reason Barmer's Mangala crude has a domestic destination.

Product slate: 1 MMTPA petrol · 4 MMTPA diesel · 1 MMTPA polypropylene · 0.5 MMTPA LLDPE · 0.5 MMTPA HDPE · about 0.4 MMTPA benzene, toluene and butadiene. Fuel is evacuated through the Barmer–Palanpur pipeline; petrochemicals go by road.

Do not write that the refinery is "under construction" or "90 per cent complete". That was true of the Economic Review's data, which closes at December 2025, and it stopped being true on 4 July 2026. This is the single most likely stale fact in the whole chapter.

Power — installed capacity

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Economic Review 2025-26 (published with the State Budget 2026-27). Figures marked "up to December" are nine-month provisional figures for 2025-26. Table 7.1.

Growth has run at 5.55% CAGR from 2020-21 to 2024-25, and the December 2025 figure is a 15.7% jump in nine months — almost entirely solar.

The composition, up to December 2025:

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Economic Review 2025-26 (published with the State Budget 2026-27). Figures marked "up to December" are nine-month provisional figures for 2025-26. Table 7.1. This is the state supply portfolio basis — see the two-solar-numbers note below.

Wind and solar together are 45.36% of the state's installed capacity — very nearly half, and that single percentage is the most quotable fact in the power section.

Two changes in the table are examinable. The atomic allocation rose from 456.74 MW to 806.74 MW in 2025-26 — a jump of 350 MW, reflecting Rawatbhata's newer units. And the 221.10 MW gas allocation from NTPC was surrendered because of high purchase cost, following a Ministry of Power guideline of 22 March 2021; Rajasthan's central-sector gas allocation is now nil.

The power stations, one by one

This is the block that station-to-district questions are drawn from, and it is pure recall. The Central Electricity Authority publishes every utility station in the country by name, owner, fuel, unit and year of commissioning. For Rajasthan, as on 31 March 2025, the thermal list runs to 11,802.83 MW.

GovtSource: Central Electricity Authority, Ministry of Power, List of Power Stations as on 31.03.2025, Appendix A. The Authority's file gives the state and not the district, so districts are handled separately below. Capacities and years are as printed there. RRVUNL is Rajasthan Rajya Vidyut Utpadan Nigam Limited, the state generation company.

Two superlatives are safe and both fall out of that table by arithmetic. Suratgarh, at 2,820 MW across its two stations, is the largest thermal station in Rajasthan. Kota, whose first units date from 1983, is the oldest thermal station in the state on the Authority's list, and the only one commissioned before 1989. Chhabra's three stages together make 2,320 MW, second to Suratgarh.

A third superlative in wide circulation does not survive. "Chhabra was the state's first supercritical plant" cannot be checked against this file, because the Authority records unit size and year but not steam conditions. Chhabra-II's 660 MW units were commissioned in 2017 and 2019, and Kawai's two 660 MW units came in 2013. On unit size alone Kawai is earlier, so the claim needs a source that states criticality and this page does not have one.

Where the district is on record:

• Giral and Jalipa-Kapurdi are in Barmer, and Palana-Barsinghsar and Gurha in Bikaner, all four stated by the Department of Mines and Geology as lignite-based power plants in those districts.
• Chhabra is in Baran, resolved tehsil-first: the Economic Review 2025-26 places Mundkiya village in Chhabra tehsil, Baran district.
• Suratgarh is in Sri Ganganagar, which is the address the Indian Bureau of Mines prints for the cement plant in the same town.
• Kalisindh is in Jhalawar, which RPSC has itself keyed, and Kota and Dholpur take the names of their district headquarters.

GovtSources: Government of Rajasthan, Department of Mines and Geology, "Non Metalic Minerals"; Government of Rajasthan, Economic Review 2025-26, Andheri Irrigation Project; and Indian Bureau of Mines, Indian Minerals Yearbook 2022, Part I, Table 5.

Several names on that list appear twice in this chapter and mean two different things each time. Ramgarh is a Jaisalmer lignite locality in section 3 and a gas-fired station here. Giral, Gurha and Bithnok are Barmer and Bikaner lignite localities in section 3, and Giral and Gurha carry power stations as well. Read the mineral and the machine as separate facts about one place, because an option that pairs the place with the wrong one of the two is the standard trap.

The Barmer lignite station has two names and is one station. The Authority calls it Jalipa Kapurdi TPP; the Indian Bureau of Mines lists it as JSW Energy Barmer Ltd at Bhadresh, 1,080 MW. Notes that print "Bhadresh" and "Kapurdi-Jalipa" as two separate super thermal stations are counting one plant twice.

Gas, and the two stations that matter

Rajasthan's gas generation is small and old, and both facts are examinable. Anta, commissioned in 1989 and owned by NTPC, is the oldest gas station in the state at 419.33 MW. Ramgarh, the state government's own, grew from a 3 MW unit in 1994 to 273.5 MW by 2014. Dholpur's 330 MW combined-cycle plant came in 2007.

Set that against the capacity table above and the picture completes itself. The state's own gas allocation is 600.50 MW and its central-sector gas allocation is now nil, the 221.10 MW NTPC allocation having been surrendered on cost. Gas is the one fuel in Rajasthan that has gone backwards.

Nuclear, and the 350 MW that appeared in 2025

The Rajasthan Atomic Power Station at Rawatbhata, Chittorgarh, is India's second-oldest nuclear site and its unit list is worth holding.

GovtSources: Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited, "Plants in Operation" for the commercial-operation dates and for RAPS-7; NPCIL, "Rajasthan Atomic Power Project 7 & 8", which states that six units totalling 1,180 MW are already in operation at the site and that RAPP-7 and 8 are India's second pair of indigenously designed 700 MW units; and Central Electricity Authority, List of Power Stations as on 31.03.2025, which records Rajasthan's nuclear capacity as 1,180 MW on that date, RAPS-7 having entered commercial operation a fortnight later.

This explains a number already on this page. The central-sector atomic allocation to Rajasthan rose by exactly 350 MW in 2025-26, from 456.74 MW to 806.74 MW. RAPS-7 is 700 MW and the host state's share of a central station is half of it. One reactor entering commercial operation on 15 April 2025 is the whole of that jump, and it is the cleanest available illustration of how central-sector allocations reach a state.

Mahi Banswara, the state's second atomic station

Rajasthan will have a second nuclear site and every detail of it is quotable.

GovtSource: PIB, Department of Atomic Energy, "Prime Minister lays foundation stone of Mahi Banswara Rajasthan Atomic Power Project", posted 26 September 2025, which records the foundation stone as laid on 25 September 2025; and PIB, "Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi inaugurates, lays foundation stone of development works worth over Rs. 1,22,100 crore in Banswara, Rajasthan", same date, for the cost and the fleet-mode description.

Two facts here are firsts and both are precise. ASHVINI is the first nuclear power project in the country to be set up by a joint venture of two central public sector enterprises. And Mahi Banswara belongs to India's fleet-mode programme, under which ten identical 700 MW reactors are being built to a uniform design and procurement plan. A foundation stone is not a reactor, and neither release gives a commissioning date.

Hydro, which is small and concentrated

Rajasthan's own hydro stations amount to 411 MW and there are only three of them.

GovtSource: Central Electricity Authority, List of Power Stations as on 31.03.2025, Appendix B, hydro stations owned by RRVUNL in Rajasthan. The Authority's list covers utility stations and excludes small hydel below its reporting threshold, so state schemes of a few megawatts do not appear on it.

Read that against the 1,017.29 MW of state-owned hydel in the capacity table and the gap is the point. The 411 MW is what stands on Rajasthan's ground; the larger figure is the state's supply portfolio, which includes its share of joint and inter-state projects. Rana Pratap Sagar and Jawahar Sagar are Chambal Valley stations shared with Madhya Pradesh on a fifty-fifty basis, and Gandhi Sagar, the third Chambal station, is in Madhya Pradesh. A question on "Rajasthan's hydro capacity" is another two-basis question, exactly like the two solar numbers below.

The two solar numbers — and why both are right

This is the trap in the whole energy section, and it is set by the government's own documents.

GovtSources: Government of Rajasthan, Economic Review 2025-26, Table 7.1; and Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, "State-wise (Location based) installed capacity of Renewable Power as on 31.07.2026".

Both are government figures and neither is wrong. The gap is power generated in Rajasthan and sold outside it — inter-state transmission-connected projects built on Rajasthan land for buyers elsewhere. Read which basis the question wants. "Installed capacity in Rajasthan" is the MNRE figure; "Rajasthan's installed capacity" in a state power-supply table is the smaller one.

Where Rajasthan actually ranks

Computed from MNRE's state-wise location-based installed capacity, as on 31 July 2026.

GovtRanks computed by this page from the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy's own release, State-wise (location based) installed capacity of Renewable Power as on 31.07.2026 — the originating ministry, its own state-wise file, dated 31 July 2026, the latest available at the time of writing (23 August 2026). All 35 states and union territories in the file were sorted, not a shortlist. Capacity moves monthly; re-check the file before quoting these ranks in a later cycle. Full method in Sources & Verification.

Three corrections to what is commonly taught.

Rajasthan is first in solar, not in renewables overall. Gujarat leads total RE at 52,610.17 MW against Rajasthan's 50,335.34 MW. A question asking for India's largest renewable-energy state and one asking for its largest solar state have different answers.

Rajasthan is fifth in wind, not third. The order is Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan. The "third in wind" claim circulates widely and does not survive the ministry's own table.

Rajasthan holds 26.81% of India's solar capacity and 17.25% of its total renewable capacity — India's totals being 164,594.75 MW solar and 291,725.64 MW renewable. More than one solar panel in four in India is in Rajasthan.

Why Rajasthan, and by how much

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Economic Review 2025-26 (published with the State Budget 2026-27). Figures marked "up to December" are nine-month provisional figures for 2025-26. The 142 GW potential is the Review's citation of an MNRE estimate.

Set the potential against the achievement: 142 GW estimated, 44.1 GW installed. Rajasthan has built under a third of its own solar potential, which is the answer to any question asking whether the state's solar story is finished.

Wind, which this chapter has so far only ranked

Wind is the second half of Rajasthan's renewable story and it has a resource figure to set beside solar's. The state's wind potential is estimated at about 284 GW at 150 metres above ground level, on the assessment of the National Institute of Wind Energy under MNRE. Against solar's 142 GW, the wind resource on paper is twice as large, which is not what the installed figures would lead anyone to guess.

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Economic Review 2025-26, "Wind Power Programme", and Figure 7.4. This 5,229 MW is a third basis, distinct from both solar numbers discussed above: it is what the state records as commissioned in Rajasthan, against the 4,416.12 MW in the supply portfolio of Table 7.1 and the 5,541.24 MW MNRE reports on a location basis as on 31 July 2026.

The first three wind projects in Rajasthan are a fixed ordered triple, and the dates are on the state's own register.

GovtSource: Rajasthan Renewable Energy Corporation Limited, Total Wind Power Projects Commissioned (Investor-wise), the corporation's project-by-project register, printed 9 May 2017 and running to 4,292.545 MW commissioned up to 2016-17. All three were built by RSPCL, the state company that became RREC. Districts are as the register records them at the time of commissioning.

Three corrections come straight out of that register.

The first project was commissioned on 14 August 1999, not on 10 April 1999. The April date circulates widely. The register gives 12 March 1999 for the power purchase agreement and 14 August 1999 for commissioning, and neither is in April.

The second project's district has moved under it. The register says Devgarh, Chittorgarh, because that is what the district was in 2000. Pratapgarh district was carved out of Chittorgarh, Udaipur and Banswara in 2008, and material filing Devgarh under Pratapgarh is describing the same place under its later district. Answer Chittorgarh for the commissioning-era fact and know that Pratapgarh is the modern name for that ground.

The third project is Phalodi, which the register writes as "Phalodi (Jodhpur)". Phalodi became a district in its own right in 2023. A locality called Bithadi does not appear in the register at all.

The wind farms cluster in one district and on one hill. Jaisalmer carries Amarsagar, Barabagh and Badabagh, Hansua, Akal, Baramsar, Mada, Sodha and Bandhan, Pohra, Pithla and Kodiyasar. Sikar carries Harshnath, on the Harsh hill. Later projects appear in Pratapgarh. If a wind locality is unfamiliar, Jaisalmer is the answer with the best base rate, and Harshnath is the one exception worth learning by name.

Institutions and policy in power

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Economic Review 2025-26 (published with the State Budget 2026-27). Figures marked "up to December" are nine-month provisional figures for 2025-26.

RRECL wearing two hats is the detail to hold — nodal agency for renewable generation under MNRE, and designated agency for energy efficiency under BEE. Generation and conservation sit in the same body.

Bhadla Solar Park

Bhadla, in Jodhpur, is the state's flagship and among the largest solar parks in the world.

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Economic Review 2025-26 (published with the State Budget 2026-27). Figures marked "up to December" are nine-month provisional figures for 2025-26. The Review gives the 2,245 MW total and names developers for Phases I–III only; the 500 MW for Phase IV is arithmetic from the Review's own total, not a figure it prints.

The three named phases total 1,745 MW, so Phase IV accounts for 500 MW — stated here as arithmetic from the Economic Review's own total, since the Review names developers only for the first three.

Phase IV is no longer arithmetic. The Economic Review 2025-26 names its developer: M/s Adani Renewable Energy Park Rajasthan Limited, a joint venture of the Government of Rajasthan and Adani Renewable Energy Park Limited, with 500 MW commissioned. It also records that Phase I was developed by RRECL independently, while Phases II, III and IV came under MNRE's Solar Park Scheme. Four phases, three developer arrangements, one park.

On the district, the state's own current document still says Jodhpur. The Economic Review 2025-26 writes that the park was "commissioned in four phases at Bhadla, Jodhpur", and RPSC's own key has said Jodhpur. Preparation material files Bhadla under Phalodi, on the ground that Bhadla lies in the area carved into Phalodi district in 2023. The Review is not simply behind on the reorganisation: it lists Phalodi separately from Jodhpur in its own petroleum-basin table. Answer Jodhpur, which is what the state prints and what RPSC has keyed, and know why Phalodi is offered.

The other solar parks

Bhadla is the famous one and it is no longer the largest.

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Economic Review 2025-26, "Development of Renewable Energy Parks and Mega/Ultra Mega Solar Power Projects". Nokh, Fatehgarh, Phalodi–Pokaran and Pugal are described there as being under MNRE's Solar Park Scheme; the Review prints no district for any of them.

Pugal at 2,450 MW is larger than Bhadla, and it answers a question this chapter could previously only put in the abstract. Section 7 argues that storage, not generation, is the binding constraint on a desert state's renewable future. Pugal is that argument built: 2,450 MW of solar with 1,600 MW of batteries able to hold 6,400 megawatt-hours. Name Pugal when a Mains answer needs an instance of the 10 GW storage target.

Two kinds of developer name are worth separating. RSDCL is the state's own special purpose vehicle and it built Bhadla I and II, Nokh and Pugal. SURAJ and the Essel and Adani vehicles are joint ventures in which the state is a partner. All of them are state-linked, and none of them is a purely private park.

One further solar figure from the same document belongs beside the two this chapter already reconciles. The Economic Review states that up to December 2025 Rajasthan had commissioned 42,531 MW of solar capacity including rooftop and off-grid projects, while its own Table 7.1 puts solar in the state supply portfolio at 9,898 MW. The state government prints both numbers in one volume. That is the clearest possible confirmation that the two-basis problem belongs to the government's own accounting, and is not an artefact of comparing a state document with a central one.

Rajasthan Integrated Clean Energy Policy, 2024

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Economic Review 2025-26 (published with the State Budget 2026-27). Figures marked "up to December" are nine-month provisional figures for 2025-26. Targets are from the Rajasthan Integrated Clean Energy Policy, 2024 as summarised in the Review.

It is framed as Rajasthan's contribution to the national target of 500 GW of renewable energy by 2030, and covers solar, wind, biomass and green hydrogen integrated with battery storage for round-the-clock supply.

The storage target is the part to understand. A desert state can build solar almost without limit, but solar stops at sunset; 10 GW of storage is what converts 115 GW of nameplate capacity into power that can be sold at 8 pm. Any answer on Rajasthan's renewable future that omits storage is missing the binding constraint.

Biomass, waste to energy, and green hydrogen

Biomass appears in the capacity table as a single row and it is the most under-prepared line in the energy section, because RAS Mains has asked for a description of Rajasthan's biomass projects in its own right.

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Economic Review 2025-26, "Biomass Energy and Waste to Energy". The 207.50 MW commissioned figure differs from the 196.45 MW biomass row of Table 7.1 for the same reason as the solar and wind figures: one counts what is commissioned in the state, the other what sits in the state's supply portfolio.

The feedstock is the examinable part, and it is agricultural rather than forest. Prosopis juliflora, the vilayati babool of the Rajasthan countryside, is an invasive thorny shrub, and burning it for power is one of the few uses that turns an ecological problem into an input. Mustard husk is the residue of the state's largest oilseed crop. Both point the same way: Rajasthan's biomass energy runs on waste, not on a fuel crop, and that is the sentence a Mains answer needs.

Green hydrogen is the newest limb of the same policy and it carries numbers. The Rajasthan Integrated Clean Energy Policy, 2024 targets 2,000 kilotonnes per annum of green hydrogen by 2030, with a 50% waiver on transmission and wheeling charges for the first 500 KTPA, and 70,000 MW of renewable capacity already registered to supply green hydrogen projects in the state.

GovtSource: Economic Review 2025-26, "Green Hydrogen".

Seventy thousand megawatts registered against about fifty thousand installed is the figure to notice. Registration is an intention, not a plant. Quote it as capacity registered to serve green hydrogen, never as capacity built for it.

PM-KUSUM in Rajasthan

Rajasthan is the scheme's largest theatre, and the numbers are examinable.

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Economic Review 2025-26 (published with the State Budget 2026-27). Figures marked "up to December" are nine-month provisional figures for 2025-26.

Note the lowest tariff of ₹2.79 per kWh — decentralised solar in Rajasthan is competitive with grid thermal, which is the economic fact underneath the policy.

Transmission

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Economic Review 2025-26 (published with the State Budget 2026-27). Figures marked "up to December" are nine-month provisional figures for 2025-26. Tables 7.2; figures include PPP projects.

The network has grown 27.31% from 36,079 ckt km in March 2017. Transmission is the quiet half of the renewable story — a solar park that cannot evacuate its power is a stranded asset, which is why green energy corridors appear in the state's plans alongside generation targets.

The corridors that carry the power out

A state that generates far more renewable power than it consumes has a transmission problem before it has a generation problem, and the corridors have names.

On 25 September 2025 the Prime Minister laid the foundation stone of three transmission projects worth over ₹13,180 crore under the Government of India's Renewable Energy Zone initiative, implemented by PowerGrid for the Rajasthan REZ.

GovtSource: PIB, "Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi inaugurates, lays foundation stone of development works worth over Rs. 1,22,100 crore in Banswara, Rajasthan", 25 September 2025. The release states that the Renewable Energy Zone initiative aims to develop 181.5 GW of renewable capacity by 2030 across eight states, and that these three lines together will move 15.5 GW of green power out of Rajasthan.

Fifteen and a half gigawatts is the number that closes the argument this chapter has been making since the two solar figures. Rajasthan's installed solar exceeds anything the state can consume, the surplus is sold outside it, and these lines are the physical reason that is possible. Three exit corridors, running east into Madhya Pradesh and north into Haryana and Punjab. The gap between 44,135 MW installed in Rajasthan and 9,898 MW in Rajasthan's own supply portfolio travels down those wires.

8. Nowadays — what changed in 2026

Covering 1 January to 23 August 2026. This section is updated every month until Prelims and Mains. Everything in it is dated, because a current-affairs fact without a date is worse than no fact at all.

The refinery started running

4 July 2026 — the Prime Minister dedicated HPCL Rajasthan Refinery Limited at Pachpadra, Balotra to the nation. India's first greenfield refinery integrated with a petrochemical complex is now commercially operating.

This is the single most consequential change of the year for this chapter and it obsoletes every "under construction" line in existing material. Full detail in section 7 above.

April 2026 — the Union Cabinet approved the revised project cost of ₹79,459 crore, up from ₹43,129 crore, together with an additional HPCL equity investment of ₹8,962 crore taking HPCL's total equity to ₹19,600 crore. A cost revision of about 84% is itself an examinable fact about large public projects, and the Cabinet note set the scheduled commercial operation date as 1 July 2026.

No new mining leases in the Aravallis

A decision taken just before this window opened, and the largest constraint now sitting on Rajasthan's mining sector.

24 December 2025 — the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change directed the states to ban the grant of any new mining lease across the entire Aravalli range, from Gujarat to the National Capital Region.

It is an interim moratorium, not a permanent ban. It holds until the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education prepares a Management Plan for Sustainable Mining (MPSM) for the whole range. Mines already operating were not closed — the states were directed to enforce strict environmental compliance on them instead.

The Supreme Court also settled a uniform definition of the Aravalli, adopting the criterion of "100 metres above local relief" that had been in force in Rajasthan since 9 January 2006. An Aravalli Hill is everything within the lowest binding contour encircling a hill of 100 m or more; an Aravalli Range is everything within 500 m of two such adjoining hills. Those landforms are excluded from mining leases.

GovtSources: PIB, Centre will protect entire Aravallis; No Mining Leases; Protected Zone to be Expanded, 24 December 2025 and the PIB factsheet on the Aravalli Hills (MoEFCC), both read in full. No Management Plan for Sustainable Mining has been found published as of 23 August 2026, so the moratorium stands on its own terms; a direction to prepare a plan is not a plan.

Set this against the Mineral Policy 2024 targets in section 6. The policy plans to expand the mineral concession area from 0.68% to 1.0% by 2029-30 and to auction 50 blocks with pre-embedded clearances — while an interim moratorium runs across the Aravalli belt. That tension is the strongest available Mains point on Rajasthan's mining sector, and it is a real one rather than a manufactured one: the Aravalli is where much of the state's non-desert mineral wealth lies. Full physiographic treatment in the physiography chapter.

Rajasthan is confirmed India's largest solar state

31 July 2026 — MNRE's state-wise installed capacity data puts Rajasthan first in India for solar at 44,135.33 MW, which is 26.81% of the national total.

But the same table puts Rajasthan second in total renewable energy, behind Gujarat, and fifth in wind. If you learn one current-affairs fact from this section, learn that the three rankings differ. Section 7 sets out all five rankings with the leaders named.

The Rajasthan Budget 2026-27

Presented 11 February 2026. Budget figures are asked directly and by number, so learn these as they are printed.

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Finance Department, Press Note — Budget 2026-27, 11 February 2026.

The budget is organised around 10 key developmental pillars for Viksit Rajasthan @2047, the tenth being a $4.3 trillion economy by 2047. Learn the count and the framing — a question naming the pillars is likelier than one asking their contents.

The Mines and Petroleum announcements:

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Finance Department, Press Note — Budget 2026-27, 11 February 2026, "Mines and Petroleum".

Two of these are worth understanding rather than memorising.

The star rating mechanism grades leases on ecologically safe and scientific mining. It is the state's answer to the charge that mineral regulation only counts revenue — and it is the single best example to cite in a Mains answer asking how mining regulation can be made environmental rather than fiscal.

The Deemed Non-Working Period addresses a real trap for lease-holders: mines within 10 km of a sanctuary or park had to stop work while the Eco Sensitive Zone notification was pending, and the clock on their lease obligations kept running. Declaring the period "deemed non-working" stops that clock. It connects this chapter directly to the protected-area chapter — the 10 km default around sanctuaries and national parks is the same rule that governs ESZs.

The energy announcements:

GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Finance Department, Press Note — Budget 2026-27, 11 February 2026 (First and Eighth Pillars).

4,830 MW of new solar parks in Bikaner and Jaisalmer is the number to carry from the budget on energy. Set it against Bhadla's 2,245 MW — the announced new capacity is more than double the state's flagship park.

Critical minerals

23 March 2026 — the Ministry of Mines launched the seventh tranche of auctions of critical and strategic mineral blocks, offering 19 blocks. Forty-six such blocks had been auctioned across the first six tranches.

Why this matters for Rajasthan specifically: the state's first-ever critical-mineral block auction, and India's first-ever potash block auction, both came in Tranche V (concluded May 2025) with the Jhandawali–Satipura and Jorkian–Satipura–Khunja potash and halite blocks. Rajasthan holds 94% of India's potash resource and has produced none of it — the auctions are the first move to change that, and the tranche programme is the mechanism to watch.

What has not changed, and is worth saying so

No new statewide mineral production figures have been published for 2025-26. The latest complete year in the state's own accounts remains 2024-25, and the current-year figures in this chapter run up to December 2025 because that is where the Economic Review 2025-26 closes. Anyone quoting a full-year 2025-26 mineral output figure today is quoting an estimate, not a return.

What RPSC has actually asked

Practice

• Practice: Minerals and Energy — 45 questions built from this chapter: 36 MCQs, 5 assertion-reason and 4 match-the-following, plus flashcards and rapid one-liners.
• Every RAS Prelims Geography question, 2013–2024 — all 78 official questions with RPSC's keys and worked explanations.

More in This Series

• Rajasthan: Location, Extent and Physiography
• Rajasthan's Climate: Characteristics, Regions and the Monsoon
• Soils of Rajasthan: Classification, Distribution and Soil Health
• Agriculture of Rajasthan: Crops, Zones and the State's Standing
• Tourism in Rajasthan: Sites, Visitors and the World Heritage Count — the Aravalli that carries the metallic minerals
• Natural Vegetation, Biodiversity and Conservation
• Population, Urbanisation and Tribes
• Every RAS Prelims Geography question, 2013–2024

Aggregator Watch

Unresolved claims from this box are collected, with what was checked, on the Caution for Readers page.

Sources & Verification

Source priority on this page: state government documents first — the Economic Review and the Budget, because RPSC asks their numbers directly — then policies and official reports, then central primary sources where the state publishes nothing comparable. No coaching material or aggregator has been used for any figure on this page.

The documents themselves

Every source below was downloaded and read directly. Open them yourself — that is the point of listing them.

Government PDFs are occasionally moved or re-published at new paths. All links above were working on 23 August 2026; if one fails, the document title and publisher are given in full so it can be found on the department's own site.

What each source supplied

Sources added in this revision

1. Central Electricity Authority, Ministry of Power, List of Power Stations as on 31.03.2025 (Power Data Management Division), read in full for Rajasthan. Taken from it: the complete thermal station inventory with owner, fuel, unit sizes and year of commissioning, totalling 11,802.83 MW; the gas stations Anta, Ramgarh and Dholpur with their capacities and years; the three hydro stations totalling 411 MW; and nuclear capacity of 1,180 MW on that date. Suratgarh as the largest and Kota as the oldest are arithmetic from this file, not claims the file makes. The file gives the state and not the district for any station.

2. Government of Rajasthan, Department of Mines and Geology, "Metallic Minerals" and "Non Metalic Minerals" (mines.rajasthan.gov.in), both read in full. Taken from them: the department's metallic and non-metallic classification; the copper and lead-zinc deposit tables with resources and grades, and the state totals of 809.09 Mt and 629.92 Mt; gold at the Bhukhia-Jagpura-Delwara belt (Banswara); tungsten at Degana, Balda, Khera-Uparla and Dewa-ka-Bera, with the department's statement that Degana and Balda have been closed down; the manganese belt from Guraria to Rathimuri; the 221 km emerald belt from Gam Gurha to Bubani and Muhami; gem garnet in Tonk in an 11 km belt from Kalyanpur to Rajmahal; locality lists for barytes, calcite, clay, dolomite, fluorite, rock phosphate, silica sand, siliceous earth, soapstone and wollastonite; Ajmer as the leading feldspar producer; the eight potash depocentres and the five districts of the evaporite basin; and the statements that lignite is of Tertiary, middle Eocene age and that lignite-based power plants operate at Kapurdi-Jalipa, Giral, Palana-Barsinghsar and Gurha. These pages are undated and still describe the state as having 33 districts.

3. Government of Rajasthan, Department of Mines and Geology, Rajasthan Mineral Policy 2024. Additionally taken from it: the split of 22 major and 36 minor minerals; the demand-driver tables for the eight key major and eight key minor minerals, with resources and FY2022-23 production; and the statement that RIICO is developing the Rajasthan Petro Zone adjacent to the refinery.

4. Indian Bureau of Mines, Ministry of Mines, Indian Minerals Yearbook 2022, Part I. Additionally taken from it: Table 2, district-wise lignite reserves as on 1 April 2023 (which the Bureau attributes to the Coal Directory of India, 2022-23), putting Barmer at 4,559.69 Mt against Bikaner's 1,099.82 Mt and a state total of 6,586.24 Mt; Table 5, principal mineral-based industries, for the Hindustan Zinc smelters at Chanderiya, Dariba and Debari, the Khetri Copper Complex, the JSW lignite station at Bhadresh, Barmer and the Shree Cement plant address in Sri Ganganagar district; the note that silver is recovered at the Chanderiya smelter as a by-product; and the occurrence districts for emerald, bentonite, ball clay and potash.

5. Government of Rajasthan, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Economic Review 2025-26. Additionally taken from it: the wind potential of 284 GW at 150 m on NIWE's assessment, and 5,229 MW of wind commissioned with 2,140 MW of hybrid including 885.60 MW of wind; the solar parks at Pugal, Nokh, Fatehgarh and Phalodi–Pokaran with developers and commissioned capacity; Bhadla Phase IV's developer and the phase-by-phase development route; 20 biomass plants of 207.50 MW with four more under execution and the Biomass and Waste to Energy Policy effective 29 September 2023; the green hydrogen target of 2,000 KTPA by 2030; the statement that 42,531 MW of solar had been commissioned up to December 2025; and Chhabra tehsil in Baran district.

6. Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited, "Plants in Operation" and "Rajasthan Atomic Power Project 7 & 8". Taken from them: the unit-wise commercial operation dates at Rawatbhata, including RAPS-7 (700 MW) on 15 April 2025; the corporation's own statement that six units of 1,180 MW are in operation at the site; and RAPP-8 under construction.

7. Press Information Bureau, Department of Atomic Energy, "Prime Minister lays foundation stone of Mahi Banswara Rajasthan Atomic Power Project", posted 26 September 2025, and PIB, "Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi inaugurates, lays foundation stone of development works worth over Rs. 1,22,100 crore in Banswara, Rajasthan", 25 September 2025. Taken from them: the Mahi Banswara project (4 × 700 MW PHWR, ASHVINI, about ₹42,000 crore, foundation stone 25 September 2025) and its standing as the first nuclear project set up by a joint venture of two central public sector enterprises; and the three Renewable Energy Zone transmission corridors from Beawar, Sirohi and Bikaner, worth ₹13,180 crore and carrying 15.5 GW. The same release records the Prime Minister laying the foundation of "the solar project at Bikaner" and names no storage project.

8. Press Information Bureau, Ministry of Mines, "Ten Critical and Strategic Mineral Blocks Auctioned in Tranche V", 27 May 2025. Additionally taken from it: the preferred bidders — Hindustan Zinc Limited for Jhandawali–Satipura and Oil India Limited for Jorkian–Satipura–Khunja. The ministry's table names the state and not the district for either block.

9. Rajasthan Renewable Energy Corporation Limited, Total Wind Power Projects Commissioned (Investor-wise), printed 9 May 2017. Taken from it: the first three wind projects with developers, capacities and commissioning dates — Amarsagar, Jaisalmer, 2 MW, 14 August 1999; Devgarh, Chittorgarh, 2.25 MW, 21 August 2000; Phalodi, Jodhpur, 2.1 MW, 9 March 2001 — and the wind localities of Jaisalmer and Sikar. The register closes at 2016-17 with 4,292.545 MW commissioned and is not a current capacity figure.

10. Ministry of Mines, Government of India, company profile of Hindustan Copper Limited, for HCL's incorporation in 1967 and its three copper mines at Malanjkhand, Khetri and Ghatsila; and Rajasthan State Mines and Minerals Limited, "Profile", for the amalgamation of RSMDC into RSMML by Government of India order S.O. 207(E) dated 19 February 2003, effective 20 February 2003, and for the four Strategic Business Units being a product of that restructuring.

11. A. M. Awasthi and others, "Geophysical Exploration in Jaisalmer Basin — A Case History", Geohorizons, Society of Petroleum Geophysicists (India), January 2002. Used only to test a claim, not to support one. It records the first exploratory well in the Jaisalmer basin over the Kharatar structure at the end of 1964, fourteen more wells in 1965 at Sumarwali Talai, Vikharan Nai, Bakhri Tibba and Manhera Tibba, and drilling at Ghotaru from 1982. Dandewala does not appear in it.

Government of Rajasthan, Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Economic Review 2025-26, published with the State Budget 2026-27, read in full for the chapter "Industrial, Mining and Economic Growth" and the chapter "Core Infrastructure". Taken from it: the count of 82 mineral varieties occurring and 57 under commercial production; the sole-producer panel and the resource-share Figure 5.8; the lease and quarry-licence counts; the 34 major mineral blocks auctioned in 2024-25; the revenue target and collection; RSMML's four SBUs, their operational revenue (Table 5.7) and the company's finances; the DMFT table (5.8) and the illegal-mining enforcement table (5.9); the IPS exploration figures; the four petroliferous basins and their fourteen districts; crude and gas production; the petroleum revenue series (Table 5.10); the installed-capacity table (7.1); the transmission tables (7.2); PM-KUSUM and rooftop progress; Bhadla Solar Park's phases; and the Rajasthan Integrated Clean Energy Policy, 2024 targets.

Government of Rajasthan, Finance Department, Press Note — Budget 2026-27, 11 February 2026. Taken from it: the fiscal indicators, the ten pillars for Viksit Rajasthan @2047, the full Mines and Petroleum announcement list, and the energy announcements including the 4,830 MW of solar parks in Bikaner and Jaisalmer.

Government of Rajasthan, Department of Mines and Geology, Rajasthan Mineral Policy 2024. Taken from it: the six numeric targets, the minor-minerals list and the four revenue leaders, and the resource-and-production table from which this page uses potash (20.5 BT resource, nil production) and gold (126 Mt resource, nil production), the lignite resource of 6.4 BT against 10.3 Mt production, and limestone.

Government of Rajasthan, Department of Mines and Geology, departmental pages (mines.rajasthan.gov.in) — "About DMG" for the Udaipur headquarters, technical strength, wings, laboratories and functions, and "Important Mineral Discoveries at a Glance" for the named deposits with reserves and grades and the locality-wise lignite listing (5,720 Mt at 78 localities in five districts).

Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, State-wise (Location based) installed capacity of Renewable Power as on 31.07.2026. Taken from it: Rajasthan's solar, wind and total renewable capacity, and — by sorting all 35 states and union territories in the file — every ranking claim on this page.

Indian Bureau of Mines, Ministry of Mines, Indian Minerals Yearbook 2022, Part I (61st edition). Taken from it: the shares of India's total resources as on 1 April 2020, the mineral-to-district occurrence lists, the sole-producer statement, and garnet (gem) as sole only till 2004-05.

Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited, HP Refineries and Major Ongoing Projects pages, and Press Information Bureau releases — for the Rajasthan Refinery's completion and dedication on 4 July 2026, the Cabinet-approved revised cost, the product slate, and the crude-processing configuration.

Press Information Bureau, Ministry of Mines — for the critical and strategic minerals regime: the MMDR Act amendment of 17 August 2023 notifying 24 minerals, Tranche V (India's first potash block auction and Rajasthan's first critical-mineral block), the Exploration Licence regime for 29 minerals, and the seventh tranche launched 23 March 2026.

Corrections and divergences recorded on this page

A mineral count of "about 50" was replaced. An earlier version of this page gave about 50 minerals from the Indian Bureau of Mines without noting that the state's own count is higher. The page now leads with the Economic Review's 82 occurring / 57 in commercial production, and shows the other government counts with their years attached, because the number has been rising and a bare count is meaningless without a date.

The Economic Review mislabels one mineral, and this page does not follow it. Its Figure 5.8 reproduces the Bureau's resource shares with every percentage identical but prints the 72% entry as "dolomite" where the Bureau writes "diatomite". The Bureau is the originating source, so this page gives the 72% to diatomite and flags the trap, since material copied from the Review carries the wrong mineral.

Two sole-producer lists are shown rather than one. The Economic Review and the Indian Bureau of Mines do not publish identical lists. Neither has been silently preferred; both are printed, the common core of three is identified, and the divergences are explained.

How the ranking table was derived. Every rank on this page comes from one file — MNRE's State-wise (location based) installed capacity of Renewable Power as on 31.07.2026 — sorted across all 35 states and union territories, not a shortlist. "Solar total" is MNRE's own column, summing ground-mounted, rooftop, the solar component of hybrid projects, and off-grid/KUSUM Component-B. "Total renewable energy" is MNRE's final column and includes large hydro; Rajasthan stays second even with large hydro excluded (49,922.84 MW against Gujarat's 50,620.17 MW), so the ranking does not turn on that choice. MNRE is the originating ministry for this data and the file carries its own date, which is why it is preferred here to any secondary compilation.

A ranking claim in wide circulation is refuted here. "Rajasthan is third in wind" does not survive MNRE's own state-wise file, which places it fifth. Likewise "Rajasthan leads India in renewable energy" is true only of solar; Gujarat leads total renewable capacity. Both corrections were derived by sorting the ministry's published file, not by consulting a secondary source.

A live staleness risk is flagged in the text. The Economic Review's data closes at December 2025, when the Rajasthan Refinery was about 90% complete. It has since been commissioned and dedicated to the nation on 4 July 2026. The page states this explicitly because "under construction" is the most likely wrong answer a reader would otherwise carry from existing material.

Figures that are provisional, unaudited or derived are labelled as such. Nine-month "up to December 2025" figures are not full-year results; RSMML's 2024-25 revenue and profit are unaudited and its 2025-26 figures are budgeted; Bhadla's Phase IV capacity of 500 MW is arithmetic from the Review's total, not a figure the Review prints; and the Department of Mines and Geology's staff strength and reserve figures carry no assessment date on the department's own page.

Freshness

This chapter carries a covers_through date and a "Nowadays" section covering 1 January to 23 August 2026, which is updated monthly until Prelims and Mains. The figures most likely to move before the exam are the MNRE capacity rankings (published monthly), full-year 2025-26 mineral output (not yet published), and the outcome of the seventh critical-minerals tranche.

Flagged rather than asserted

The named mine localities are from RPSC's own answer keys, each cited by year and question number, and cross-checked against the Bureau's district lists where possible — Kherwara against the asbestos districts, the iron-ore trio against the haematite districts, Got-Manglodh against Nagaur's gypsum.

What Mando-ki-Pal, Talwara and Rishabhdev do produce is not stated here. RPSC established only that they are not feldspar, not lead-zinc and not mica respectively; the Bureau's district lists make fluorspar likely for Mando-ki-Pal (Dungarpur) and soapstone likely for Rishabhdev (Udaipur), but neither is confirmed at locality level and neither is published as fact.

Mineral-by-mineral production tonnages are not tabulated here, and the omission is deliberate. The Rajasthan Mineral Policy 2024 does print a resource-and-production table for FY2022-23, and this page uses the rows that are unambiguous — potash and gold with resources and no production, and lignite and limestone. The lead and zinc production entries in that same table read oddly against every other source (lead production above zinc, which is not how the state's output is otherwise reported), so they are not reproduced. Where a government table appears internally inconsistent, this page quotes the part it can stand behind and says why it stopped there, rather than reprinting the whole table on the authority of its letterhead.

The state's rank by value of mineral production is also not stated, because the figures readily available are from 2014-15 and older and would need a current year attached to be useful.