NCERT Class 12 Geography Tertiary and Quaternary Activities

Tertiary and Quaternary Activities

When you fall ill you go to your family doctor or you call a doctor. Sometimes your parents take you to a hospital for treatment. While in school, you are taught by your teachers. In the event of any dispute, legal opinion is obtained from a lawyer. Likewise, there are many professionals who provide their services against payment of their fee. Thus, all types of services are special skills provided in exchange of payments. Health, education, law, governance and recreation etc. require professional skills. These services require other theoretical knowledge and practical training. Tertiary activities are related to the service sector. Manpower is an important component of the service sector as most of the tertiary activities are performed by skilled labour, professionally trained experts and consultants.

In the initial stages of economic development, larger proportion of people worked in the primary sector. In a developed  economy, the majority of workers getemployment in tertiary activity and a moderate proportion is employed in the secondary sector. Tertiary activities include both production and exchange. The production involves the ‘provision’ of services that are ‘consumed’. The output is indirectly measured in terms of wages and salaries. Exchange, involves trade, transport and communication facilities that are used to overcome distance. Tertiary activities, therefore, involve the commercial output of services rather than the production of tangible goods. They are not directly involved in the processing of physical raw materials. Common examples are the work of a plumber, electrician, technician, launderer, barber, shopkeeper, driver, cashier, teacher, doctor, lawyer and publisher etc. The main difference between secondary activities and tertiary activities is that the expertise provided by services relies more heavily on specialised skills, experience and knowledge of the workers rather than on the production techniques, machinery and factory processes.

TYPES OF TERTIARY ACTIVITIES

By now you know that you purchase your books, stationery from traders shop, travel by bus or rail, send letters, talk on telephone and obtain services of teachers for studies and doctors at the time of illness. Thus, trade, transport, communication and services are some of the tertiary activities discussed in this section. The chart provides the basis for classifying the tertiary activities.

TRADE AND COMMERCE

Trade is essentially buying and selling of items produced elsewhere. All the services in retail and wholesale trading or commerce are specifically intended for profit. All this work takes place in towns and cities also known as trading centres.

The rise of trading from barter at the local level to money-exchange of international scale has produced many centres and institutions such as trading centres or collection and distribution points. Trading centres may be divided into rural and urban marketing centres.

Rural marketing centres cater to nearby settlements. These are quasi-urban centres. They serve as trading centres of the most rudimentary type. Here personal and professional services are not well-developed. These form local collecting and distributing centres. Most of these have mandis (wholesale markets) and also retailing areas. They are not urban centres per se but are significant centres for making available goods and services which are most frequently demanded by rural folk.

RETAIL TRADING SERVICES

This is the business activity concerned with the sale of goods directly to the consumers. Most of the retail trading take place in fixed establishments or stores solely devoted to selling. Street peddling, handcarts, trucks, door-to-door, mail-order, telephone, automatic vending machines and internet are examples of non-store retail selling.

EXERCISES

1. Choose the right answer from the four alternatives given below.

    (i) Which one of the following is a tertiary activity?

           (a) Farming                    (c) Weaving

           (b) Trading                     (d) Hunting

    (ii) Which one of the following activities is NOT a secondary sector activity?

           (a) Iron Smelting             (c) Making garments

           (b) Catching fish             (d) Basket Weaving

    (iii) Which one of the following sectors provides most of the employment in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata.

           (a) Primary                    (c) Secondary

           (b) Quaternary               (d) Service

    (iv) Jobs that involve high degrees and level of innovations are known as:

           (a) Secondary activities        (c) Quinary activities

           (b) Quaternary activities        (d) Primary activities

    (v) Which one of the following activities is related to quaternary sector?

          (a) Manufacturing computers                  (c) University teaching

          (b) Paper and Raw pulp production          (d) Printing books

    (vi) Which one out of the following statements is not true?

          (a) Outsourcing reduces costs and increases efficiency.

          (b) At times engineering and manufacturing jobs can also be outsourced.

          (c) BPOs have better business opportunities as compared to KPOs.

          (d) There may be dissatisfaction among job seekers in the countries that outsource the job.

2. Answer the following questions in about 30 words.

    (i) Explain retail trading service.

    (ii) Describe quaternary services.

    (iii) Name the fast emerging countries of medical tourism in the world.

    (iv) What is digital divide?

3. Answer the following questions in not more than 150 words.

    (i) Discuss the significance and growth of the service sector in modern economic development.

    (ii) Explain in detail the significance of transport and communication services.

Please refer to attached file for NCERT Class 12 Geography Tertiary and Quaternary Activities