response to illegal sand mining on the Cooum river. It also directed the police to patrol areas prone to illegal sand mining, confiscate any heavy vehicles involved, and install CCTV cameras to monitor such places. Government Response To curtail the rampant mining, in November 2013, Government of Tamil Nadu banned mining in 71 of the 90 sand quarries. Then in January 2014, the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests issued guidelines, according to which quarries with lease area of five to 25 hectares can only allow manual mining, but there was ambiguity on whether the rules were applicable to existing quarries too, the state PWD believed existing quarries were exempt and could continue using heavy machinery. However illegal sand mining is rampant according to newspaper reports and observation. The Union Ministry of Mines in an affidavit to the Madras High Court stated that responsibility for prevention of illegal mining lay with the state government and only the state government can take direct action against illegal mining. See also Illegal mining in India References Corruption in Tamil Nadu Environment of Tamil Nadu Illegal mining in India Tamil Nadu