There are 251 working and 267 non-working iron-ore mines in the country. Out of which 12 working mines and 36 non-working mines are located in State of Jharkhand.

The Minister of State for Mines and Steel Vishnu Deo Sai provided the information to the Rajya Sabha on May 4, 2016 in reply to a question raised by Rajya Sabha member Parimal Nathwani.

According to the Minister’s statement, Jharkhand ranks fourth in terms of non-working iron ore mines in India. With 77 non-working iron-ore mines Odisha tops the list, while Karnataka and Goa are on second and third positions with 66 and 40 non-working iron-ore mines respectively.

Nathwani wanted to know about the details of number of sick iron ore mines in the country and the government’s plan to revive sick iron ore mines. However, according to the minister’s statement, the government does not categories mines as sick mines but non-working mines. Therefore, no information was provided about the number of sick mines and plans to revive them.