India, March 18 -- The government has promised to address the concerns of fishermen and local communities about offshore sand mining during the preparation of production and environmental management plans.

Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav on Monday informed Lok Sabha that the first tranche of auction for 13 offshore mining blocks was launched last November. He added this included three offshore blocks for construction sand off the coast of Kerala.

Yadav was responding to Congress lawmaker KC Venugopal's questions on whether a comprehensive Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was conducted before the auction of sand blocks for offshore mining in Kerala. Venugopal sought the details of key findings along with the degradation o...