The state government was fully geared to tackle flood situation in Bihar, including relief and rescue measures, a senior official said today.
A number of measures like setting up a flood fight force at nine places, stocking anti-flood materials, etc, to deal with flood situation in the state, the Water Resources Principal Secretary Ajay Naik told reporters here.
The flood fighting teams comprising retired engineers and technical experts will be deployed at the district headquarters or the nearest place to the rivers usually in spate during the monsoon, he said.
The district authorities of flood-prone districts have been provide with life jackets, country boats, motorboats etc to carry out rescue and relief works, Naik said.
Water resources department has decided to deploy home guards to monitor the condition of 3610-km long embankment.
It has been decided for the first time to hire dredgers to remove silts from the Koshi river from time to time in order to contain its fury, he said.
Silt would also be removed from all major rivers with an estimated costs of Rs 1000 crore to prevent flooding and crop damage, the principal secretary said.
Apart from these measures, the water resources department has completed anti-erosion works under 368 schemes out of the total 373 schemes under which the river embankments in the flood-prone areas have been raised or strengthened, he said.