BharatNotes Soil is where the physiography and the climate chapters cash out. The Aravalli's alignment decides the rainfall; the rainfall decides the weathering; the weathering decides the soil; and the soil decides the crop and the district. Almost nothing in this chapter is a fact about dirt. It is the last step of an argument the unit has already made.
One change matters more than any figure here. In 2024 RPSC set a soil question in USDA soil-taxonomy orders and keyed Alfisols. Preparation material written in descriptive language — red loam, desert soil, brown soil — cannot match an option list that reads Entisol, Inceptisol, Vertisol, Alfisol. The vocabulary is the examinable part.
1. The land the soil sits on, as the state counts it
Before any classification, fix how much land is in play, because every percentage in this chapter is a share of one of two different denominators and the two are routinely confused.
| Total reporting area of the State | 343.43 lakh hectares, 2024-25 |
| Net sown area | 53.02 per cent of that reporting area |
| The north-western region | 61 per cent of the State — desert or semi-desert, and reliant on rainfall |
| The south-eastern region | 39 per cent of the State — fertile |
| Agro-climatic zones | 10, delimited on climate, soil types, topography and cropping patterns |
GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Economic Review 2025-26 (Directorate of Economics and Statistics, published with Budget 2026-27), Agriculture chapter, read directly. The reporting area and the net sown share are the Review's own figures for 2024-25; the 61:39 split and the ten agro-climatic zones are stated in its section on agro-climatic zones. The zones themselves are worked in the climate chapter, because the Review defines them on climate first.
Note that the state's own document names soil as one of the four criteria for the agro-climatic zones. The zones are not a climate map with soil added afterwards; soil type is written into their definition, which is why a question about zones and a question about soils can share an answer.
And hold the 61 per cent, because it returns in section 3 with a completely different provenance — from an ICAR institute measuring the arid zone rather than from the state describing its regions, and the two land within a percentage point of each other.
2. The vocabulary RPSC moved to
In RAS 2024 Prelims the commission asked which soil is dominant in Jaipur, Dausa and Alwar, and offered four USDA soil orders. The key is Alfisols.
| The question | |
|---|---|
| Asked | Which type of soil is dominant in Jaipur, Dausa and Alwar districts? |
| Options | (a) Entisol · (b) Inceptisols · (c) Vertisols · (d) Alfisols |
| RPSC key | (d) Alfisols |
Source: RAS 2024 Prelims, Q5, with RPSC's own key, reproduced and worked on the Geography PYQ page. The four options are orders of the USDA soil taxonomy, not descriptive soil names.
What the orders mean, in the form the exam can use them. These are definitions of the taxonomy itself, not claims about Rajasthan's area.
| Order | What defines it | Where it turns up in this state's argument |
|---|---|---|
| Entisols | Soils with no developed horizons — too young, or too constantly disturbed, to have formed them | Sand dunes and river sands. The desert's shifting surface is the type case |
| Aridisols | Soils of an aridic moisture regime, dry for most of the year, typically carrying carbonate or gypsum accumulation at depth | The stable desert plains, where the surface has stayed put long enough to build a horizon |
| Inceptisols | Young soils with the beginnings of horizons but not the full development of a mature order | Transitional country between the desert and the plains |
| Alfisols | Clay accumulated in a subsurface horizon, with relatively high base saturation — moderately weathered and reasonably fertile | The eastern semi-arid uplands. This is RPSC's keyed answer for Jaipur, Dausa and Alwar |
| Vertisols | High-shrink-swell clay soils that crack deeply when dry | The black cotton country of the south-east |
Source: definitions of the USDA soil-taxonomy orders as the taxonomy states them. No area figure for Rajasthan is attached to any row above, because the only measured order-wise shares located for this chapter cover the arid zone alone and are given in section 3 with that scope stated.
Read the exam consequence rather than the definitions. A candidate who knows "the eastern plains have red-to-yellow loamy soils" knows the right thing in the wrong language, and will not find it in an option list. The translation to hold is that the fertile eastern semi-arid uplands are Alfisols and the dune country is Entisols.
3. The one measured breakdown, and the scope it actually has
A pair of figures travels everywhere in preparation material: Entisols 51.84 per cent and Aridisols 41.05 per cent. They are real, they come from a serious source, and they are not shares of Rajasthan.
| What was mapped | The arid zone of Rajasthan, not the State |
| Mapping units delineated | 30 |
| Entisols | 51.84 per cent of that area |
| Aridisols | 41.05 per cent of that area |
| Dominant among the Entisols | Torripsamments — dune and hummocky plain |
| The Aridisols are mainly | Cambids and Calcids |
PrimarySource: R. P. Dhir, D. C. Joshi, N. Singh, B. K. Sharma and A. S. Kolarkar, "Taxonomy and Distribution of Arid Soils of Rajasthan", Annals of Arid Zone 36(4), 1997, published by ICAR, abstract read directly. Its own opening words are "A soil map of arid zone of Rajasthan is presented", and the percentages in its abstract are of that zone's total area. Within the Aridisols the paper names Psammentic and Typic Haplocambids, Typic Haplocalcids and Typic Petrocalcids as extensive subgroups.
How large is the zone those percentages describe? 20.8 million hectares, across twelve named districts.
| Area of hot arid Rajasthan | 20.8 million hectares |
| Districts | Jaisalmer, Barmer, Bikaner, Jodhpur, Jalore, Pali, Nagaur, Jhunjhunu, Sikar, Churu, Hanumangarh, Sri Ganganagar |
| Extent | 24° 19′ to 30° 11′ N, 69° 28′ to 76° 5′ E |
| Samples in the 2021 nutrient assessment | 5,655 |
PrimarySource: Mahesh Kumar, Amal Kar, P. Raina, S. K. Singh, P. C. Moharana and J. S. Chauhan, "Assessment and Mapping of Available Soil Nutrients using GIS for Nutrient Management in Hot Arid regions of North-Western India", Journal of the Indian Society of Soil Science 69(2), 2021, pp. 119-132, doi:10.5958/0974-0228.2021.00035.9, authors at ICAR-Central Arid Zone Research Institute, Jodhpur, read directly. The twelve districts are on the pre-2023, thirty-three-district map, so Balotra, Phalodi, Didwana-Kuchaman and Beawar — four of the eight districts created in 2023 and retained in the December 2024 cull — now hold parts of the same ground. The arid zone itself did not change; only the lines drawn across it did.
Now do the division, because it is the whole point. 20.8 million hectares against the state's 34.2 million is about 61 per cent — which is the same 61 per cent the Economic Review gives for the desert and semi-desert north-west. An ICAR institute measuring an arid zone and the state government describing its regions arrive at the same share by different routes.
So the honest statement of the famous pair is this. Entisols are the largest order across roughly the western three-fifths of Rajasthan, at about 52 per cent of that portion, with Aridisols at about 41 per cent. They are not 52 per cent and 41 per cent of the state, and the remaining two-fifths — the eastern plains and the south-eastern plateau, where the Alfisols and Vertisols are — is not in that survey at all.
One more caution about the age of the figures. The Dhir paper is from 1997. It is still the reference the field uses: the 2021 CAZRI paper above quotes those same two percentages and attributes them to Dhir et al. 1997 rather than replacing them. No newer order-wise survey covering the whole of Rajasthan was located for this chapter, and none is asserted.
4. Why the desert soils are poor, stated as a mechanism
The examinable form of this section is a chain, not a list of adjectives.
| Property, as the 2021 CAZRI paper states it | |
|---|---|
| Texture | Predominantly sandy, with low clay, low silt and low organic carbon |
| Nutrients | Poor in available nutrients |
| Moisture regime | Aridic |
| Temperature regime | Hyperthermic |
| Consequence | Because of those two regimes, weathering of minerals and pedogenesis are weak |
| Landforms carrying these soils | Sand dunes; hills and colluvial plains; alluvial plains; saline depressions; riverbed and water bodies |
PrimarySource: Kumar et al., 2021, cited in full in section 3, read directly. "Because of aridic moisture regime and hyperthermic temperature regimes weathering of minerals and pedogenesis are weak" is the paper's own sentence. The same study reports DTPA-extractable iron ranging from 0.84 to 42.7 mg/kg with a mean of 6.42, which it rates marginally adequate.
The chain to carry into an answer. Little rain and high heat mean little chemical weathering. Little weathering means no clay is formed and no horizons develop. No clay means no capacity to hold nutrients or water. That is why the order is Entisol — an order defined by the absence of horizons — and it is why fertiliser applied to a dune behaves differently from fertiliser applied in Kota.
Notice what the word "poor" is doing. These soils are not exhausted by farming; they are young. A soil that has never developed a horizon is a different problem from a soil that has lost one, and the remedies differ: the first needs organic matter and moisture retention, the second needs the lost structure rebuilt.
5. Soil health, and the scheme that began in Rajasthan
The Soil Health Card scheme is a Rajasthan question before it is an agriculture question, because of where it was launched.
| Launched | 19 February 2015, by the Prime Minister, at Suratgarh in Sri Ganganagar district, Rajasthan |
| The year | 2015 was the International Year of Soils |
| What the card is | A printed report per land holding, testing 12 parameters |
| The 12 | Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium, Sulphur (macro-nutrients); Zinc, Iron, Copper, Manganese, Boron (micro-nutrients); and pH, Electrical Conductivity and Organic Carbon |
| Cycle | One card every 3 years, so the next cycle shows the change |
| Sampling | After the harvest of Rabi and Kharif, or when there is no standing crop |
| Quality assurance | 1 per cent of samples cross-checked in referral laboratories |
| Central support | ₹190 per sample, covering collection, testing, generation and distribution |
| Since 2022-23 | Folded into Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana as the "Soil Health & Fertility" component |
GovtSource: Press Information Bureau, Soil Health Card — "Swasth Dharaa, Khet Haraa", August 2025, read in full. The national position it records: over 25 crore Soil Health Cards distributed as of July 2025, and, as of February 2025, ₹1,706.18 crore released to States and UTs and 8,272 soil testing laboratories — 1,068 static, 163 mobile, 6,376 mini and 665 at village level.
Learn the launch place, because it is the only part of a national scheme that is a Rajasthan fact. Suratgarh, Sri Ganganagar, 19 February 2015. A question pairing the scheme with a state will pair it with this one.
What the state has actually done, this year
| Rajasthan, 2025-26 up to December | Target | Achievement |
|---|---|---|
| Soil samples collected | — | 4.79 lakh |
| Soil health cards issued | 4,05,000 | 4,14,714 |
| Gypsum distribution (MT) | 30,000 | 8,090 |
GovtSource: Economic Review 2025-26, Agriculture chapter and its table of physical targets and achievements, read directly. These are nine-month positions, "up to December", not full-year results, which is why the card figure can already exceed its annual target while gypsum sits far below its own. The Review states the same card figure two ways — 4.15 lakh in its text and 4,14,714 in its table — and the two agree on rounding.
The gypsum row is the one worth an answer. Gypsum is the amendment for sodic and alkaline soils, the ones where exchangeable sodium has destroyed the structure. Rajasthan distributed about 27 per cent of its gypsum target in nine months while exceeding its soil-card target. Testing soil and treating soil are different activities with different delivery problems, and a scheme that measures well does not automatically remediate well. That contrast, with both numbers, is a stronger Mains point than either figure alone.
6. What goes wrong with these soils
This chapter has already given the state's gypsum distribution figure without saying what gypsum is for. It is the amendment for sodic and alkaline soil, and the three things that damage soil in Rajasthan are worth naming properly because RPSC sets the classification rather than the cure.
Erosion, and why the agent matters here
Erosion is the removal of the soil's top surface, and it is classified by the agent that does the removing.
| Agent | Forms, in the standard classification |
|---|---|
| Rainwater | Splash erosion, then sheet erosion — the loss of a thin layer across a whole surface |
| Running water | Rill erosion, deepening into gully erosion — the badland form that gives the Chambal its ravines |
| Wind | Surface creep, saltation — grains bouncing along the surface — and suspension, the finest particles carried in the air |
Source: the standard agent-wise classification of soil erosion as soil science states it. This is a taxonomy, not a measurement, and no share of Rajasthan's area is attached to any row: no state-wise process-wise breakdown was located for this chapter and none is asserted.
Wind is the agent that distinguishes this state. In most of India erosion is a water problem; across western Rajasthan it is principally a wind problem, which is what a sandy, structureless, sparsely vegetated surface under an aridic regime produces. The gully form still matters in the east, where the Chambal's ravines are the reason the Dang region exists as an administrative category — see the physiography chapter, which also carries the measured figure for how much of the state is under desertification and land degradation.
Salinity and alkalinity, which are two problems and not one
| Salinity | Alkalinity / sodicity | |
|---|---|---|
| What you see | A white crust of salt on the surface | Soil that runs slick and structureless, often called usar or oily soil |
| The measure | High electrical conductivity | High pH, above about 8.5 |
| How it arises | Excessive irrigation followed by evaporation, drawing salts up by capillary action | Sodium accumulation, aggravated by unbalanced use of chemical fertiliser |
| The remedies | Leaching, drainage, and irrigation that does not over-apply water — drip rather than flood | Gypsum, plus organic matter: green manure such as dhaincha, and farmyard manure |
Source: the standard descriptions of saline and sodic soils and their reclamation. Both are on the Soil Health Card's own parameter list — EC measures the first and pH the second, which is why the card tests twelve parameters and not merely the three nutrients. The districts most often named as affected are listed in Aggregator Watch below, because no government table of the state's saline or sodic area was reached for this chapter.
Now the gypsum number in section 5 means something. Rajasthan distributed 8,090 tonnes of gypsum against a target of 30,000 in the first nine months of 2025-26. Gypsum is the sodic-soil remedy, and it is the one input on the state's own physical-target table that is furthest behind. A state that tests soil at better than its target and delivers the corrective at about a quarter of its target has an implementation gap, not an information gap, and that is the sharpest thing this chapter can give a Mains answer.
One caution on the vocabulary. Salinity and alkalinity are routinely used interchangeably in preparation material and they are not the same. A saline soil is one with too much soluble salt; a sodic soil is one where sodium has replaced other cations on the clay and destroyed the structure. Gypsum treats the second. Leaching treats the first. Applying the wrong remedy to the wrong problem is the distinction a question is testing.
7. Nowadays — what changed in 2026
Covering 1 January to 29 August 2026. Updated every month until Prelims and Mains.
The Budget puts a number on next year's testing
The State Budget for 2026-27 proposes testing 1,92,000 soil samples in the coming year, and states the purpose in two parts: to assess the effects of climate change on the nutrients of agricultural land, and to manage soil fertility.
GovtSource: Government of Rajasthan, Finance Department, Budget Speech 2026-27, agriculture announcements, read directly from the speech. This is an announcement of intent for 2026-27 and not an achievement, and it should never be written as one.
Two things make that announcement examinable rather than routine. It ties soil testing explicitly to climate change, which is a framing the scheme did not originally carry. And 1,92,000 is well below the 4.79 lakh samples the state collected in the first nine months of 2025-26 — so read it as a targeted assessment exercise rather than as a scaling-up of the Soil Health Card programme, and do not present it as the state's total testing plan.
What has not changed, and is worth saying so
The taxonomy has not been resurveyed. Dhir et al. 1997 remains the reference for the order-wise distribution of Rajasthan's arid soils, and an ICAR paper of 2021 still quotes it rather than superseding it. No statewide order-wise survey exists in anything reached for this chapter.
The Soil Health Card design has not changed: still 12 parameters, still one card every three years, still ₹190 per sample, still inside RKVY since 2022-23.
And the launch fact does not move. 19 February 2015, Suratgarh.
What RPSC has actually asked
One soil question is on record in the Prelims papers this site reproduces, and it is the one that fixed the vocabulary.
RAS 2024 Prelims, Q5. Which type of soil is dominant in Jaipur, Dausa and Alwar districts? — RPSC key: (d) Alfisols. Worked in full, with the other three options explained, on the Geography PYQ page.
What that single question tells you about the rest. The commission set an order, not a colour. It chose three eastern districts whose answer is the same order, which is the safest kind of soil question to set and therefore the most likely kind to recur. Expect the pairing form — districts to order — before you expect a percentage.
Revision notes
The two denominators. Reporting area 343.43 lakh ha (2024-25); net sown 53.02%. North-west 61% desert/semi-desert; south-east 39% fertile. 10 agro-climatic zones, defined on climate, SOIL, topography and cropping pattern.
The exam's vocabulary. USDA orders, not colours. RAS 2024 Prelims Q5: Jaipur, Dausa, Alwar = ALFISOLS. Entisols = no horizons (dunes); Aridisols = aridic regime, carbonate/gypsum at depth; Inceptisols = young horizons; Alfisols = subsurface clay, high base saturation; Vertisols = shrink-swell clay.
The famous pair, with its scope. Entisols 51.84%, Aridisols 41.05% — of the ARID ZONE, not the state (Dhir et al., Annals of Arid Zone 36(4), 1997; 30 mapping units; Torripsamments dominant; Aridisols mainly Cambids and Calcids). Arid zone = 20.8 M ha, 12 districts, ≈61% of the state — the same 61% the Economic Review gives.
Why they are poor. Sandy, low clay/silt/organic carbon, poor in available nutrients. Aridic moisture + hyperthermic temperature → weak weathering and pedogenesis. Young, not exhausted.
Soil Health Card. Launched 19 Feb 2015 at SURATGARH, Sri Ganganagar — 2015 was the International Year of Soils. 12 parameters (N, P, K, S · Zn, Fe, Cu, Mn, B · pH, EC, OC). One card every 3 years. ₹190 per sample. 1% cross-checked. Under RKVY since 2022-23. National: >25 crore cards (Jul 2025), 8,272 labs (Feb 2025).
Rajasthan 2025-26, up to December. 4.79 lakh samples; 4,14,714 cards against a 4,05,000 target; gypsum 8,090 MT against a 30,000 MT target.
Nowadays. Budget 2026-27 proposes 1,92,000 soil samples, tied to assessing climate-change effects on farmland nutrients — an announcement, not an achievement.
Important for RAS
Prelims Focus
- Jaipur, Dausa, Alwar → Alfisols. RPSC's own key, RAS 2024 Prelims Q5. The options are USDA orders; descriptive names will not appear
- Entisols 51.84% and Aridisols 41.05% are shares of the arid zone, not of Rajasthan. If an option offers either as a state-wide share, the scope is wrong even though the number is right
- 30 mapping units in the arid-zone soil map; Torripsamments the dominant Entisol suborder; Cambids and Calcids the main Aridisols
- Hot arid Rajasthan: 20.8 million hectares, 12 districts — Jaisalmer, Barmer, Bikaner, Jodhpur, Jalore, Pali, Nagaur, Jhunjhunu, Sikar, Churu, Hanumangarh, Sri Ganganagar
- Soil Health Card launched 19 February 2015 from Suratgarh, Sri Ganganagar, in the International Year of Soils; 12 parameters; one card every three years; ₹190 per sample; 1 per cent cross-checked in referral labs
- Reporting area 343.43 lakh hectares (2024-25); net sown area 53.02 per cent
- Ten agro-climatic zones are defined on climate, soil type, topography and cropping pattern — soil is in the definition, not an afterthought
- Gypsum is the amendment for sodic and alkaline soils. Rajasthan: 8,090 MT against a 30,000 MT target, 2025-26 to December
Interview and Mains Angles
- The state tests soil well and treats it poorly: cards exceeded target while gypsum reached about a quarter of its own. What does that gap say about the difference between an information programme and a remediation programme?
- Rajasthan's desert soils are young rather than degraded. How should that distinction change what a soil policy for the western districts actually does?
- The Budget ties soil testing to assessing climate-change effects on farmland nutrients. What would have to be measured, and over what period, for such an assessment to mean anything?
- The standard order-wise map of the state's arid soils dates from 1997 and is still being cited in 2021. What follows for planning from resting on a survey a generation old?
Aggregator Watch
Unresolved claims from this box are collected, with what was checked, on the Caution for Readers page.
Claims below circulate in coaching notes, question banks and aggregator sites for this topic. They are listed only where they are either absent from this chapter or in conflict with it. None has been confirmed against a primary source by us. Carry them as "what the aggregators say" so an option in a paper does not surprise you — do not treat them as established, and do not build a Mains answer on them.
| Aggregator claim | Status here |
|---|---|
| The State Agriculture Department divides Rajasthan's soils into 14 types | Not verified here. No Government of Rajasthan document setting out a fourteen-fold soil classification could be reached, and the number varies between sources that state it. The figure is repeated without a citation wherever it appears |
| The traditional classification runs desert soil, dune and associated soil, brown soil, sierozems, red loam, hill soil (lithosols), saline-sodic (solonchak), alluvial and black soil | Not verified here as a scheme. The individual soil names are real terms in the older literature and several describe Rajasthan accurately. But no government or primary source setting out this list as the state's official classification, with areas or district lists, was located. Note that these are descriptive names and RPSC's 2024 question used USDA orders instead |
| Entisols cover the largest area in Rajasthan, at about 51.8 per cent of the state | Scope is wrong even though the number is real. 51.84 per cent is the Entisol share of the ARID ZONE in Dhir et al. 1997, an area of 20.8 million hectares against the state's 34.2 million. The paper's own first sentence says it maps the arid zone. No statewide order-wise share was located, here or anywhere reached |
| District-wise soil tables assigning a single soil type to each of the 33 or 41 districts | Not verified here. No government soil map of Rajasthan resolved to district level was reached. RPSC's own 2024 question names three districts and one order, which is the only district-to-order pairing on this page, and it is there because the commission keyed it |
| Rajasthan's soils are deficient in nitrogen and organic carbon and generally alkaline, with specific percentage figures for each deficiency | Half-supported and not carried as figures. The CAZRI study on this page does report the arid soils as low in organic carbon and poor in available nutrients, and gives measured ranges for micronutrients. The tabulated statewide deficiency percentages in circulation trace to no source reached here |
| Named soil conservation and reclamation projects with areas reclaimed, and figures for the state's saline or waterlogged area | Not covered. The Economic Review's agriculture chapter carries the gypsum distribution figure now on this page but no statewide saline or sodic area, and no departmental reclamation report was reached |
| The districts worst affected by soil salinity are given as Barmer, Balotra, Jalore, Sri Ganganagar, Hanumangarh and Bikaner | Not verified here. The list is plausible on its face — it names the canal-irrigated north-west and the arid west, which is where over-irrigation and high evaporation would concentrate salts. But no government table of district-wise saline or sodic area was reached, and a plausible list is not a sourced one. The mechanism is on this page; the district roster is not |
| Process-wise shares of soil degradation in Rajasthan — how much is wind erosion, how much water erosion, how much salinity | Not carried. The erosion typology on this page is a classification, not a measurement. The state-level figure this site does carry is the total area under desertification and land degradation, read from the SAC/ISRO atlas and given in the physiography chapter; a process-wise split for Rajasthan was not located, and national process figures are not a substitute for it |
Practice
- Practice: Soils of Rajasthan — 45 questions built from this chapter: the USDA orders, the scope of the Entisol and Aridisol shares, erosion, salinity against sodicity, and the Soil Health Card, each with a worked "why not the others".
- Every RAS Prelims Geography question, 2013–2024 — all 78 official questions with RPSC's keys and worked explanations, including the 2024 soil question.
More in This Series
- Rajasthan: Location, Extent and Physiography
- Rajasthan's Climate: Characteristics, Regions and the Monsoon
- Lakes, Traditional Water Harvesting and Irrigation
- Natural Vegetation, Biodiversity and Conservation
- Livestock and Dairy Development
- Caution for Readers — the claims across this site that are genuinely unsettled
Sources & Verification
Written on 29 August 2026. Every document named below was downloaded and read for this chapter, not cited from a search result.
The documents themselves
| Document | Publisher | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| Economic Review 2025-26 | Government of Rajasthan | Reporting area, net sown share, the 61:39 regional split, ten agro-climatic zones, soil samples and cards, gypsum |
| Budget Speech 2026-27 | Government of Rajasthan | The 1,92,000-sample proposal for 2026-27 |
| "Taxonomy and Distribution of Arid Soils of Rajasthan", Annals of Arid Zone 36(4), 1997 | ICAR | Order-wise shares of the arid zone, 30 mapping units, suborders |
| "Assessment and Mapping of Available Soil Nutrients using GIS", J. Indian Soc. Soil Sci. 69(2), 2021 | ICAR-CAZRI, Jodhpur | Arid-zone area and districts, soil properties, the 2021 restatement of the 1997 shares |
| Soil Health Card — "Swasth Dharaa, Khet Haraa" | Press Information Bureau | Launch date and place, the 12 parameters, cycle, cost, national totals |
1. The scope correction is the chapter's main contribution and it is stated rather than implied. The Entisol and Aridisol percentages are quoted everywhere as shares of Rajasthan. The paper that produced them opens "A soil map of arid zone of Rajasthan is presented", and the 2021 CAZRI paper that re-quotes them describes the same study area as 20.8 million hectares across twelve districts. Against the state's 34.2 million hectares that is about 61 per cent, and the eastern two-fifths of Rajasthan is outside the survey. Both papers are cited; neither is contradicted; only the scope that preparation material drops is restored.
2. No statewide order-wise breakdown is asserted, because none was found. A figure for the Alfisol or Vertisol share of Rajasthan would be the natural companion to section 3 and it is deliberately absent. RPSC's own key supplies the only district-to-order pairing this page carries.
3. The state's figures are nine-month positions and are labelled so. "Up to December" appears in the Economic Review's own wording and is reproduced here, because a soil-card count that has passed its annual target in nine months and a gypsum count at a quarter of its target are both incomplete years, and comparing them as if they were results would be wrong.
4. The Budget line is an announcement. 1,92,000 samples is a proposal for 2026-27. It is placed in Nowadays, labelled as intent, and set against the 4.79 lakh samples actually collected in nine months of 2025-26 so that its size is not mistaken.
5. The age of the taxonomy is disclosed on the page rather than hidden. The order-wise map is from 1997. That it is still being cited in 2021 by the institute that works on these soils is evidence that it remains the standard reference, and it is also the reason the chapter does not present it as current measurement.
Links were checked and resolving on 29 August 2026, each against its final URL rather than its first.
Not asserted after this revision: any fourteen-fold state classification; the descriptive soil-name scheme as an official list; district-wise soil assignments beyond RPSC's own keyed three; statewide deficiency percentages; and any saline, sodic or waterlogged area figure for the state. Each is in the Aggregator Watch box above with what was checked.
