Read the following passage carefully and answer the question :
Coal is a one of the important minerals which is mainly used in the generation of thermal power and smelting of iron ore. Coal occurs in rock sequences mainly of two geological ages, namely Gondwana and tertiary deposits. About 80 per cent of coal deposits in India is of bituminous type and is of non-coking grade. The most important Gondwana coal fields of India are located in Damodar Valley.
They lie in Jharkhand-Bengal coal belt and the important coal fields in this region are Raniganj, Jharia, Bokaro, Giridih, Karanpura.
Jharia is the largest coal field followed by Raniganj. The other river valleys associated with coal are Godavari, Mahanadi and Sone. The most important coal mining centres are Singrauli in Madhya Pradesh (part of Singrauli coal field lies in Uttar Pradesh), Korba in Chhattisgarh, Talcher and Rampur in Odisha, Chanda-Wardha, Kamptee and Bander in Maharashtra and Singareni in Telangana and Pandur in Andhra Pradesh.
The Gas Authority of India Limited was set up in 1984 as a public sector undertaking to transport and market natural gas. It is obtained along with oil in all the oil fields but exclusive reserves have been located along the eastern coast as well as (Tamil Nadu, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh), Tripura, Rajasthan and off-shore wells in Gujarat and Maharashtra.
The largest coal field of India is
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → Jharia
The passage states: “Jharia is the largest coal field followed by Raniganj.”
Note 1: This passage is taken from the chapter ‘Mineral and Energy Resources’ (India: People and Economy), almost word for word. Its last paragraph, on natural gas, is from the same chapter of the pre-rationalised NCERT book.
Note 2: A similar question was also asked in CUET (UG) 2023 on 18-06-2023 (Slot 2).