Offshore blocks in the seas around India, made available to private companies for mining, were carved out after excluding regions known to be Marine Protected Areas, the Earth Sciences Ministry said in response to a query in the Lok Sabha by Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor on Wednesday (December 10, 2025).
A battle between fishing and mining
Earlier this year, protests had erupted in Kerala — cutting across party lines — over the Centre’s proposal, last November, to auction 13 blocks in the sea, allowing private companies to mine for construction-grade sand off the coast of Kerala, three blocks of lime mud off the coast of Gujarat, and seven blocks of polymetallic nodules and crust off the Great Nicobar Island in the Union Territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
The protests, however, were concentrated in Kerala where fishermen communities protested that such mining would destroy marine life and deplete fish stocks. The Kerala Assembly, this March, passed a resolution opposing the Centre’s auctioning of the block.
Ocean conservation takes centre stage at Alliance Française of Madras
