Important Industries

Industrial units in the state are namely divided into three:

1. Agro-based industrial units:- These may be classified as food products, beverages, cotton, wood and paper industries.

2. Machinery units

3. Chemical units

Some notable industries are:

Cotton Textile Indyustry

Punjab produces about 70 percent of the best quality cotton in India. The easy availability of the raw material facilitates the localisation of this industry in Punjab. In spite of several advantages, there is one main disadvantage that the total spindlage capacity of the state is only 1.5 percent of the country.

The cotton mills are located at Abohar, Malout, Phagwara, Amristar, Kharar and Ludhiana. Malerkotla, Abohar, Malout and Bhatinda are important for cotton ginning and pressing and about 25.3 lakh bales of cotton are pressed annually over here. About 97 million kgs of yarn and 36.5 million metres of cloth were produced in the cotton textile mills of Punjab.

Sugar Industry

The Sugar mills in Punjab are located at Batala, Gurdaspur, Bhogpur, Phagwara, Nawanshahar, Zira, Morinda, Rakhra, Dhuri, Fazilka, Nakodar, Budhewal, Bhatinda and Jagraon.

A salient feature of the Sugar industry is that out of the 14 mills,12 are in the Co-operative sector and only two are privately owned. Compared to Uttar Pradesh and some other states, the size of the sugar mills in Punjab is small. The Co-operative sugar mill at Morinda is the biggest in the state with a daily crushing capacity of 4,000 tonnes of sugarcane.

Dairy Industry

The primary source of milk and other dairy products in the state is the buffalo. Punjab ranks at the top in the country is the availability of milk. A major part of the milk produced in the state is consumed at the individual household level, only a limited quantity of milk is produced and processed in the milk plant.

In Punjab there are milk plants in the Public Sector, Private sector and Co-operative sector. The plants are mainly located at Verka (Amristar district), Ludhiana, Mohali, Jalandhar, Patiala, Hoshiarpur, Gurdaspur, Ferozepur, Sangrur, Bhatinda, Faridkot, Nabha, Moga, Kot Kapura and Hamira. The plant at Moga, known as Food Specialities, is the biggest plant in the state with a processing capacity of 435 thousand litres of milk. This plant produces a variety of milk products like ghee, sweets, lassi etc.

Vanaspati Ghee Industry

The Vanaspati ghee industry is based mainly on the production of groundnut. This industry is not very big, as the oilseeds for the country are brought from other states. The Vanaspati ghee units are situated at Amritsar, Ludhiana, Khanna, Doraha and Rajpura.

Wollen Textile Industry

Woolen textile industries are situated at Amritsar, Ludhina and Dhariwal.

Hosiery industry

Punjab leads the whole of the country in the manufacture of hosiery products. Most of these units are located in Ludhiana. This industry is a major foreign exchange earner.

Sports Goods industry

The sports goods industry of Punjab became well known only after 1947. Jalandhar is the main centre for the production of sports goods. This industry play a major part in earning foreign exchange.