West Singhbhum Iron Ore Saranda Forest Mining

West Singhbhum district contains the Saranda iron ore belt with deposits of over 3 billion tonnes in the Noamundi, Kiriburu, and Meghahatuburu ranges, mined by Tata Steel and SAIL for their Jamshedpur and Bokaro steel plants. The Saranda forest, covering 820,000 hectares, is the world's largest Sal forest and one of India's most biodiversity-rich areas, where tiger, elephant, leopard, and sloth bear survive alongside iron ore mines. The conflict between Ho tribal forest rights, wildlife conservation, and iron ore extraction has made West Singhbhum a national flashpoint for India's development-environment debate; the Supreme Court's Forest Conservation Act orders on mining in elephant corridors have periodically halted operations.