Chennai: City’s three major waterways -- Cooum, Adyar and Buckingham Canal -- now have got another chance to revive as chief minister C Joseph Vijay’s dream scheme to restore them has got funding support from the Union govt.The Union govt has given an in-principle approval to provide ₹7,500 crore to Tamil Nadu under the Urban Challenge Fund in the first phase. These funds will be used for the Chief Minister’s Integrated Urban Transformation Mission (CMIUTM), announced by the chief minister on Monday. Under the scheme, the MAWS dept has planned to restore the three major waterways besides integrated infrastructure upliftment for the 25 corporations.An MAWS official said the state has a total potential to secure ₹30,000 crore under the centre’s UCF. “In this, they have agreed to give ₹7,500 crore in the first phase. We will be submitting them specific detailed project reports for key projects under the CMIUTM to secure the funds starting from this year,” the official said.Among the key development plans proposed is restoration of Cooum River, Adyar River and Buckingham Canal. “The chief minister has told us to prioritise these three in war-footing, and ensure visible changes are shown within five years,” he said.What differentiates CMIUTM from other schemes is that every project proposed will be common to all the corporations. “So far, from basics like road relaying, to constructing storm water drain to special projects like multi-level parking and pedestrian plaza, every local body is doing it in a peacemeal way locally. The CMIUTM will take uniform projects for all corporations, and sanction them with a uniform project design, timeline and funding. By this way, the development will be even in all the districts. This will make development uniform in all parts of Tamil Nadu and will leave no district behind,” the official said.Under this, modern parks and recreational facilities will be developed in Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai and Tiruchirappalli too, while sponge parks for flood prevention and rainwater management will be created inside corporation parks. All the local bodies have been instructed to begin localised DPRs to propose projects for the CMIUTM from this week so that they can be pushed faster.The state govt has outlined a total fund requirement of ₹1.5 lakh crore to execute all projects under the CMIUTM. Besides the ₹30,000 crore demand from Centre, the state will look at other avenues like municipal bonds, state grants and foreign bank fundings to meet this requirement.