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Key Points at a Glance
These points summarise the exam-ready data and associations for India's natural resources: forests, vegetation, soils, water, minerals and power resources.
India's Total Forest and Tree Cover
- Total forest and tree cover: 8,09,537 sq km
- Equals 24.62% of total geographic area (FSI, State of Forest Report 2021)
- Forest cover alone: 7,13,789 sq km, or 21.71% of India's geographic area
- National Forest Policy 1988 targets 33% coverage (one-third of land)
- Forest Survey of India (FSI) is the official measuring body
5 Major Types of Natural Vegetation
- Tropical Evergreen - >200 cm rainfall; Western Ghats, NE India
- Tropical Deciduous - most widespread; 75-200 cm rain; sal, teak
- Tropical Thorny/Scrub - arid zones; <75 cm rain; khejri, babool
- Montane Forests - altitudinal zones in Himalayas
- Tidal/Mangrove Forests - coastal deltas
Tropical Moist Deciduous - India's Largest Forest Type
- Largest forest type by area in India
- Sal (Shorea robusta) dominates eastern India: Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh
- Teak (Tectona grandis) dominates central-western India: MP, Maharashtra, Karnataka
- Both are high-value commercial timber species
6 Major Soil Types (ICAR/NBSS&LUP)
- Alluvial - 43% of cultivated land; most productive; Ganga-Indus plains
- Black/Regur - 15%; Maharashtra, MP, Gujarat; cotton soil
- Red/Laterite - 18%; Peninsular plateau
- Arid/Desert - <250 mm rain; W. Rajasthan, Gujarat
- Forest/Mountain - Himalayas
- Saline/Alkaline - waterlogged areas
India's Water Availability
- Total annual water availability: about 1,869 BCM
- Utilisable water: about 1,123 BCM (690 BCM surface + 433 BCM groundwater)
- India is one of the world's largest groundwater users
- Accounts for about 25% of global groundwater extraction
Coal Reserves - World's 4th Largest
- Total reserves: about 344 billion tonnes
- 90% is bituminous/sub-bituminous coal from Gondwana formations
- Damodar Valley (Jharia, Raniganj - Jharkhand/West Bengal) is India's richest coalfield
- India is the world's 2nd largest coal producer (about 900 MT/year)
India's Renewable Power Capacity (March 2025)
- Total installed renewable energy capacity: 220.10 GW as of 31 March 2025
- Solar: 105.65 GW; wind: 50.04 GW; bioenergy: 11.58 GW; small hydro: 5.10 GW
- India's earlier March 2024 renewable snapshot was around 195-199 GW, so the 2025 figure marks a major jump
- COP26/Panchamrit commitment: 500 GW non-fossil fuel capacity by 2030
Bauxite (PYQ 2023)
- India is the world's 5th largest bauxite producer and 5th in reserves (about 3.5 billion tonnes)
- Odisha - Panchpat Mali (Kalahandi), Koraput (largest deposits)
- Andhra Pradesh - Visakhapatnam; Gujarat - Jamnagar
- Maharashtra - Kolhapur
Petroleum Reserves - Key Basins
- Bombay High (offshore Mumbai) - about 40% of domestic crude production in recent summaries; ONGC-operated
- Assam - Digboi (India's oldest oilfield, 1889); Duliajan
- Krishna-Godavari Basin - deep-water KG-D6 block (Andhra Pradesh)
- Rajasthan - Barmer-Sanchore Basin (Cairn India/Vedanta fields)
Sundarbans - India's Largest Mangrove Forest
- Area on Indian side: 4,260 sq km (West Bengal, within the Ganga-Brahmaputra delta system shared with Bangladesh)
- UNESCO World Heritage Site and Ramsar Wetland
- Home to the Royal Bengal Tiger (about 100 on Indian side)
- Formed by the Ganga-Brahmaputra delta system
Iron Ore - Major Reserve Base
- Total haematite and magnetite resources: over 35.284 billion tonnes in IBM's 2022 yearbook
- Top producing states include Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Jharkhand and smaller producers such as Goa/Rajasthan in older patterns
- Key mines: Bailadila (Dantewada, CG), Kiriburu (Singhbhum, Jharkhand), Hospet-Bellary (Karnataka)
- Both haematite and magnetite types are present
Mica - India's Global Importance
- India was once the world's largest mica producer
- Still associated with a large share of global sheet mica supply in exam literature
- Jharkhand (Hazaribagh, Koderma, Girdih) and Rajasthan (Bhilwara, Ajmer, Jaipur) are major belts
- Uses: electrical insulation, electronics, cosmetics