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NCERT Solutions Exploring Society: India and Beyond Chapter 14 End-of-chapter exercise — Questions, activities and projects

Book page 208 Updated on2026-09-05

Q1.
What is the primary sector? How is it different from the secondary sector? Give two examples.
Answer

The primary sector is the group of economic activities in which people depend directly on nature to produce goods. Page 196 defines it as “the group of activities that involves extraction of raw materials directly from nature such as farming, fishing, forestry, etc.”, and the text adds that in these activities “people are directly dependent on nature to produce goods”.

Primary = take it out of nature as it is
Secondary = change its form into a new product

How the two sectors differ:

Basis of differencePrimary sectorSecondary sector
1. Source of materialNature itself — soil, water, forest, mine, livestockThe output of the primary sector
2. What happens to the materialIt is grown, caught, reared or extracted. Its form is not changedIts form is changed — processed, manufactured or assembled into a new product
3. Nature of outputRaw material — wheat, milk, fish, cotton, timber, iron oreFinished or semi-finished goods — flour, ghee, cloth, furniture, steel; also buildings, roads and utilities
4. Where the work is doneFields, forests, mines, rivers, seas, farmsMills, factories, workshops, production units, construction sites
5. DependenceDepends on nature — on rain, soil, season and the stock of fish or mineralsDepends on the primary sector for its raw material, and on machines and power
6. ValueThe output is worth comparatively little as it standsValue is added — the product sells for more than the raw material cost

Two examples of each, as a pair, so the difference is visible:

  1. Growing cotton in the black soil of Vidarbha or Gujarat is a primary activity — the farmer takes the fibre from the plant. Spinning that cotton into yarn and weaving it into cloth in a mill at Coimbatore is a secondary activity — the cotton has become a different thing.
  2. Mining iron ore at Bailadila in Chhattisgarh is a primary activity — the ore is dug out of the earth. Making steel from that ore at the Bhilai plant, and then cars from the steel, is a secondary activity.
Two more pairs from the chapter itself if you need them: growing grain (primary) → grinding it into flour in a mill (secondary); collecting wood from the forest (primary) → making furniture and paper from it (secondary).
Q2.
How does the secondary sector depend on the tertiary sector? Illustrate with a few examples.
Answer

A factory can make goods, but it cannot move them, pay for them, sell them or be told what to make. All of that is done by the tertiary sector — which is why no factory in India runs without it.

Tertiary serviceWhat it does for the factoryExample
1. TransportBrings raw material in and carries finished goods outThe Bhilai steel plant would stop within days without the railway that hauls iron ore from Bailadila and coal from the Jharia coalfield
2. Trade and retailSells what the factory makes; without a buyer, production is pointlessCars assembled at Manesar are sold through thousands of dealers and showrooms; AMUL’s butter reaches you through retail stores
3. Banking and insuranceLends money to build the plant and buy raw material; insures the goods against fire, theft and accidentA knitwear unit in Tiruppur borrows from a bank to buy yarn months before the shirts are paid for
4. Warehousing and cold storageStores the output until it is sold — page 201 defines warehouses as buildings “used for storing products before they are sold”Cold stores at Nashik and along the highways hold processed food and dairy products between factory and shop
5. Communication and softwareCarries orders, designs and payments; runs the machines and the accountsA garment exporter emails designs to buyers abroad; software from Bengaluru and Hyderabad tracks every consignment
6. Education and healthcareTrains the engineers, technicians and workers, and keeps them well enough to workITIs and engineering colleges supply the fitters and machinists of every pharmaceutical unit in Hyderabad and Baddi
7. Repair and maintenanceKeeps the machines running; a broken machine makes nothingMechanics and electricians — “electricians, who ensure regular supply of electricity”, as page 201 says

One example followed all the way through — a sugar mill at Kolhapur.

Tractor-trolleys and bullock carts bring the cane in from the fields — transport
A bank lends the mill money to pay farmers before the sugar is sold — banking
Trucks and railway wagons carry the sugar to wholesale markets — transport
Wholesalers and kirana shops sell it to households — trade and retail
Phones and computers carry the orders and record the payments — communication
Why the dependence runs both ways: the tertiary sector needs the secondary sector just as badly. A truck with nothing to carry earns nothing; a shop with nothing to sell closes; a bank with no factory to lend to has no borrower. Each is the other’s customer. That mutual need is exactly what the chapter means by interdependence.
Q3.
Give an example of interdependence between primary, secondary and tertiary sectors. Show it using a flow diagram.
Answer

Example: the journey of cotton from a field in Vidarbha to the shirt you wear. It passes through all three sectors, and each one hands the work on to the next.

From a cotton field to a shirt: the three sectors at work 1. The farmer grows and picks cotton black soil of Vidarbha, Maharashtra PRIMARY SECTOR 2. Trader and truck take it to the mill mandi, weighbridge, lorry, bank payment TERTIARY SECTOR 3. Mill spins yarn, weaves cloth, stitches Coimbatore and Tiruppur, Tamil Nadu SECONDARY SECTOR 4. Warehouse, transport, shop, advertising railway wagon, godown, showroom, online order TERTIARY SECTOR 5. You buy and wear the shirt the end consumer the money you pay travels back to the farmer banks, phones and trucks serve every single stage
The cotton-to-shirt chain. Goods move down the diagram, money moves back up it, and tertiary services touch every stage.

How each sector depends on the others in this chain:

  • The mill depends on the farmer — no cotton in the field, no yarn in the mill.
  • The farmer depends on the mill — with no buyer, his cotton would lie in the house unsold and he would earn nothing.
  • Both depend on transport, banks and traders — the cotton must be carried, weighed, paid for and insured, and the shirt must reach a shop before anybody can buy it.
  • The transporter and the shopkeeper depend on the first two — a lorry with nothing to carry and a shop with nothing to sell both earn nothing.
  • All three depend on the tertiary sector for people — schools, ITIs and hospitals produce the farmers, fitters, drivers and salespeople the chain runs on.
You may use the chapter’s own example instead. The AMUL chain works exactly the same way: farmer milks the cow (primary) → tanker carries the milk to Anand (tertiary) → factory makes butter, ghee and milk powder (secondary) → lorries, rail, ships and retail stores (tertiary) → your kitchen. Or the textbook chain of Fig. 14.1: tree felled (primary) → hauled to the mill (tertiary) → paper made and printed (secondary) → sold in a shop (tertiary).
What the flow diagram is really showing: value being added at every stage. Raw cotton is worth a few rupees a kilogram; as yarn it is worth more, as cloth more still, and as a finished shirt in a shop it is worth many times the price of the cotton. Each sector adds part of that value by its work — which is why a country needs all three, and why the loss of any one of them makes everybody in the chain poorer.
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