Rungta Brothers Enter India's Billionaire Top 100 as Iron Ore Fortune Hits ₹40,000 Crore

For decades, India's mineral-rich belt has minted fortunes far from the glare of Mumbai's stock exchanges and Bengaluru's tech campuses. The latest proof arrives from Chaibasa, a small town in Jharkhand, where two brothers have quietly assembled one of the country's largest private mining and steel operations — and just landed on Fortune India's list of the top 100 billionaires.

Nandlal Rungta and Mukund Rungta, who run Rungta Mines Limited, debut at 61st position with a combined estimated wealth of ₹40,000 crore. That places them in the same conversation as Vedanta chairman Anil Agarwal, whose net worth Forbes pegs at ₹59,244 crore, or $7.1 billion — roughly ₹20,000 crore more than the brothers. The comparison is not incidental. Rungta Mines and Vedanta's Sesa Goa both chase iron ore, and both have been frequent participants in high-value auctions for mining leases across Odisha and Chhattisgarh, states where the geology itself is a competitive arena.

The family's story began in 1962, when the late S.R. Rungta founded the S.R. Rungta Group, focused on extracting iron ore and manganese. After their father's death, Nandlal and Mukund took over, and the next generation — Nandlal's son Siddharth Rungta, chairman of the Rungta Steel brand — pushed the business further downstream. Regulatory changes in the 2000s that shrank the number of operational mines gave RML a powerful incentive to integrate forward rather than simply dig and sell.

That pivot matters. Today Rungta Mines makes pellets, sponge iron, billets, TMT bars, wire rods and ductile iron pipes, with plants at Chaliyama in Jharkhand and Commanda in Odisha. Revenue has climbed from a few thousand crore rupees a decade ago to more than ₹13,500–15,000 crore in recent years, supported by captive power generation, digital initiatives and strong credit ratings. The company is headquartered in Chaibasa, with its registered office in Kolkata — a reminder that eastern India's resource economy still runs through family-controlled firms as much as listed giants.

For international investors tracking Asian capital, the Rungtas represent a broader pattern: commodity wealth moving up the value chain. India's steel demand is rising with infrastructure spending and urbanisation, and families that once sold raw ore are now competing with established steelmakers for margin. The auction system for mineral leases has concentrated power among bidders with deep balance sheets, favouring groups like RML and Vedanta. That dynamic is likely to intensify as India pushes domestic processing and decarbonisation.

The debut also says something about visibility. India's billionaire lists have long been dominated by software, pharmaceuticals, telecom and financial services. Mining families from Jharkhand and Odisha rarely get the same attention, even when their output feeds the country's construction boom. The Rungtas' entry changes that calculus — at least for now.

What comes next depends on execution. Expanding steel capacity requires capital, land, power and environmental clearances, all of which are harder to secure than mining leases. But the brothers have already shown they can move beyond their father's business. For a global audience watching where Asia's next industrial fortunes are built, the answer may be less Silicon Valley and more the red soil of eastern India.