• Prachanda will arrive in India on Sunday

• India will request Nepal for logistics and security
  

With a sense of urgency, India will take up with Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal (Prachanda) the issue of construction of the Saptakosi and Sunkosi dam projects in upstream Nepal to tame the Kosi in Bihar. He is arriving here on Sunday.

The multipurpose Saptakosi dam will substantially reduce the flooding in Kosi, which caused unprecedented havoc in Bihar this year.

Water Resources Secretary Umesh Narayan Panjiar told The Hindu here on Tuesday that the Indian government would request Nepal to help with logistics and security for preparation of Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) so that dam construction could be expedited.

In 2004, a Joint Project Office was set up at Viratnagar in Nepal for facilitating the preparation of the DPRs. "Recently, the Nepal government agreed to expedite the matter," Mr. Panjiar said.

Plugging the breach
In the immediate term, work would start to plug the breach in the Kosi embankments that triggered floods in Bihar.

The Sanyal Committee constituted by the Bihar government, which also has representation of central engineers from the Ganga Flood Control Commission, would take up excavation of the silted channels on the western side of the river that had exerted pressure on the eastern bank. The work has been assigned to a private dredging company from Hyderabad.

Secondly, the engineers would close the breaches on the embankment on both sides of the river with sand bags, weighing two-four tonnes. In a bid to divert water flow from left to right, specially constructed cement, stone and steel "porcupines" would be erected to "induce siltation."