Haryana government has constituted a technical committee under the chairmanship of JR Sharma, to advise the Haryana Saraswati Heritage Development Board (HSHDB), engaged in the development of the Saraswati river and its heritage, in technical issues with immediate effect.

An official spokesman of Art and Cultural Affairs Department said that MR Rao, AK Gupta, representative from Geological Survey of India (expert in relevant field), representative from National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) or Regional Remote Sensing Centre (RRSC), Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), representative from Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), representative from Haryana Space Applications Centre (HARSAC), representative from Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology and Mukta Sharma would act as members. Arvind Kaushik would serve as member secretary of the committee.

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He said that the Committee would advise the Board for all technical issues as and when required and would also present its recommendations to the Board.
It would also advise the Board for the technical decision in the field of Geo-Scientific, Geological, Hydrological, Glaciological, Water Technology and other technical issues pertaining to the Saraswati Heritage Project. The tenure of the Committee would be of two years.

HSHDB has been focusing its work on securing the river land as per revenue records and the old maps of Survey of India, identifying sources for year-round flow of water and identifying buried palaeo-channels of the Saraswati, which finds mention in the Vedas as well as the Bhagavad Gita.

The river is believed to have originated from Adi Badri (Haryana) but has now dried up and is believed to have gone underground.

The move to revive the mythical river was initially taken up during the tenure of the first NDA government under Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2002. The project was, however, dropped after the Manmohan Singh government took over at the Centre and was revived after the formation of the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) government in Haryana under Manohar Lal Khattar who has earmarked Rs 50 Crore to trace and revive the river.