The Oil India Limited (OIL) proposes to lay a pipeline between its existing pumping station at Jorhat and the new refinery site to be established at Numaligarh by Numaligarh Refinery Limited.

Environmental Impact Assessment of the above project is a mandatory requirement of the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MOE & F) for the environmental appraisal of the project, prior granting environmental clearance. M/s Engineers India Limited (EIL), New Delhi, have been assigned the job to prepare a comprehensive EIA report. Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun, has been offered a consultancy by M/s Engineers India Ltd. for undertaking the studies related to the likely impacts of the above project on wildlife habitats en route the proposed pipeline and their wildlife values.

The findings of the studies undertaken at WII have been presented in five different sections. The Section - I highlights the importance of the evaluation of the environmental impacts of linear development projects and also presents the profile of the proposed project. Section - II describes the various methodologies, adopted to assess the likely impacts of the proposed project on the surrounding environment. Section - III presents the pre-project status of the proposed project environment. Section - IV outlines the major impacts of this proposed project. Section - V provides the measures for the mitigation of the likely impacts of the proposed project.

Different organizations and individuals have greatly helped in the preparation of this report.

The help and assistance provided by the various officials of Engineers India Limited, is gratefully acknowledged. Our special thanks are due to shri Anil Jain Sr. Manager and Shri Jayant Joshi, Sr. Engineer (Environment and Engineering Division) for providing the project related maps, feasibility report and all other relevant information about the project environment.

The officials of the Oil India Limited, are gratefully acknowledged for their co-operation during the field studies. Shri M. Bhandari Chief Engineer, Shri Rahul Chaudhury Superintending Engineer, Jorhat; Shri B.K. Bora, Dy. Chief Engineer, Pipeline (Maintenance/Project), Gauhati; Shri A.K. Tapadar, Dy. Chief Engineer, Jorhat; Shri P. Jamal, Superintending Engineer, Jorhat; Shri S.K. Mahajan, Superintending Engineer, Jorhat are specially thanked for their readiness to offer all support at the project site. The assistance provided by Shri I. Dey during the field work as well as during our stay at Gauhati is gratefully acknowledged.

We are grateful to Professor P.C. Bhattacharjee, Head, Dept. of Zoology, Gauhati University, Professor U.C. Goswami, Dr. Amalesh Dutta, Reader; and Dr. P.J. Handique and Shri Prasantha Saikia Lecturers also from Dept. of Zoology, Gauhati University, for providing scientific information on different biological parameters. Shri Rathin Barman and Shri Bibhab Talukdar, Research Scholars; from Dept. of Zoology, Gauhati University, are also sincerely thanked for their help.

At the Institute, Shri S.K. Mukherjee, Director is gratefully acknowledged for being a constant source of encouragement and guidance. Shri S.S. Oberoi, Finance Officer and Shri Rajiv Mehta of the finance section maintained the project accounts very meticulously. Shri Narinder Singh Bist assisted in word processing and Shri Vipul Desai and Shri G. Shanmugam assisted in the preparation of maps and the Desk Top Printing of the report. Shri Mahesh Ghosh and Shri Mohammed Ismail assisted in the reprography. Their support is thankfully acknowledged. Services of Shri Mohan Singh, Driver are also thankfully acknowledged.

Dehradun

7th July, 1995

 Dr. Asha Rajvanshi

Faculty In-charge, EIA, Cell