Mumbai: A unified River Rejuvenation Authority on the lines of National River Conservation Authority will be set up in the state to clean up the four major river basins—Narmada, Tapi, Krishna and Godavari. The state cabinet on Wednesday approved the proposal for its establishment to carry out both regulatory and developmental work to reduce pollution of rivers as well as to conserve and revitalise them.The CM will be the chairman of the authority, while the ministers for finance, urban development, water resources, industry, rural development and panchayati raj will be members. Two panels—an executive committee headed by the environment minister and a secretary-headed committee headed by MPCB’s member- secretary—will oversee implementation. There are 296 polluted river belts across the country, of which 54 are in Maharashtra. The authority will oversee the rejuvenation of rivers from source to sea of all rivers across the state. The cabinet approved raising Rs 2,000 crore through MPCB, which has a corpus of Rs 4,000 crore. The state govt will contribute Rs 100 crore. The cabinet also approved providing 10% of the amount received from minor mineral extraction to the authority every year. Money will also be raised through social responsibility funds received from various companies and mixed financing from various financial institutions. TNN
