A detrital zircon U–Pb laser ablation–inductively coupled plasma–quadrupole mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-QMS) provenance study was undertaken on samples selected from the Lower Gondwana successions preserved in the fault-bounded Bokaro and Jharia basins in India to investigate the provenance of the sediment and determine whether the strata were deposited in isolated syn-depositional graben basins or formed part of a wider regional depositional system. A total of 730 concordant U–Pb detrital zircon ages revealed six distinct age fractions: (i) a latest Neoproterozoic to earliest Cambrian age fraction (530 to 510 Ma), which tails down in some samples to older Neoproterozoic ages (650 to 630 Ma); (ii) a major age fraction with an age peak of earliest Neoproterozoic (950 Ma), accompanied in some samples by a twin Mesoproterozoic peak (1000 Ma); (iii) a middle Mesoproterozoic age fraction (1330 to 1300 Ma); (iv) a prominent earliest Mesoproterozoic zircon age fraction (1600 Ma); (v) a less well-defined late Palaeoproterozoic zircon age fraction (2100 to 1700 Ma, or 1600 Ma); and (vi) an Archaean zircon age fraction that typically comprises two zircon age fractions, namely zircons with early Neoarchaean ages (2800 to 2750 Ma) coupled with zircons with ages older than 3100 Ma. Comparison of these newly obtained age fractions with detrital zircon age data presented by Veevers & Saeed (2009) shows similarities with the Gondwana strata of the Mahanadi and Pranhita–Godavari basins, implying that strata preserved in the fault-bounded Gondwana basins in central east India formed part of a much wider regional depositional system and that they were not deposited in isolated half-graben or graben basins. Potential source regions to the Gondwana strata of the Bokaro and Jharia basins include the Eastern Ghats Mobile Belt and rock units in Antarctica.