BHUBANESWAR: The State Government has identified 69 illegally operated mines and asked their owners to stop operations forthwith. Identification of illegally operated mines is done by a task force constituted by the State Government in October. The task force is headed by Chief Secretary TK Mishra. The maximum number of 30 such mines are located in Joda area while 15 have been identified in Koida. There are nine illegal mines in Rourkela while in Keonjhar the number is five. Official sources said that the number of such mines is expected to increase with the progress of the investigation.