In India, the steel production industry requires the import of

The correct answer is C) coking coal. In a blast furnace, coking coal is converted into metallurgical coke, which acts as both the reducing agent that strips oxygen from iron ore and the fuel that keeps the furnace hot. Steel cannot be made economically without it, and India's domestic supply of prime coking coal is limited in quality and quantity, so the country imports a large share of its requirement.

• Saltpetre (potassium nitrate) is not a steel input. It goes into fertiliser, explosives, glass and matches. India has domestic sources, so this is not the import the question points to.
• Rock phosphate is the raw material for phosphatic fertilisers such as DAP and SSP. It has no role in steelmaking, so this option is wrong.
• D) All of the above fails because the first two options are not steel inputs.

The core concept is raw material linkage between industries. For Mains GS-3 (mineral resources, infrastructure, import dependence), link coking coal to the Coking Coal Mines (Nationalisation) Act, 1972, the washery capacity needed for high-ash Indian coal, and the push to reduce import dependence through the National Mineral Policy and domestic coal mining reforms. Import dependence has grown since 2015, so check the latest data before using a figure.

Trap: candidates pick D because fertilisers and steel are both 'industries that import minerals', and they assume every mineral in the list belongs to the steel chain. Ask first whether the mineral is actually consumed in steelmaking.