Chennai, Mar 18: With a view to use Singapore's expertise in cleaning up the highly polluted Cooum river in the city, Tamil Nadu government today inked a pact with the Singapore Cooperation Enterprise (SCE).

The Memorandum of Understanding with SCE, an agency formed by the Ministry of Trade and Industry and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Singapore, will allow the latter to share inputs in project development, sharing expertise with local engineers and advise the state government on various aspects of Cooum revamping.

The SCE team is on a three-day visit to the state and scheduled to make field visits tomorrow, a government release here said.

Deputy Chief Minister M K Stalin had visited Singapore last year to study the cleaning up process of Singapore river and submitted a report to Chief Minister M Karunanidhi.

Later, the Chennai River Authority was formed with Stalin as the head to take up the cleaning up of the 65 km long river originating from the nearby Tiruvallore district.

Letting in of industrial polluntants and other wastes into the river had turned the river into one of the most polluted water bodies in the state, with successive governments initiating various projects for its clean up. - Agencies