The trends of consumption of energy from petroleum products in India in last ten years indicate that there has been a rise from 35.21 million tonnes in the year 1984-85 to 56.67 million tonnes in the year 1993-1994 (Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, 1994). The increase in the consumption of petroleum products is inevitable because of the fact that oil is the balancing source of fuel/energy to improve the standard of living condition and to reduce dependence on non-commercial sources of energy in most developing countries including India. Based on the demand scenario for petroleum products which indicates an increase of 104% in last ten years, projections of the demand for petroleum product for the year 2001 is expected to be nearly 169 per cent (i.e. 38.80 MMT) of the demand scenario (Ministry of Petroleum and Natural gas, 1994).

The increasing demand for commercial energy and modern fuels have led to unprecedented expansion of infrastructure for transportation of crude and refined petroleum products. Further expansion of infrastructural support is inevitable to meet the ever growing demands of power and energy for this country's industrial growth. India now has a network of over 10,500 km of pipeline for transporting crude and finished petroleum products (Ministry of Petroleum and Natural gas, 1994). Although pipeline is a major infrastructural necessity for transportation of petroleum products, its expansion should not lead to adverse impacts on the natural resource assets of the country and the decline in the habitat quality and wilderness values of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems en route the pipeline.

The objective of ecological planning is to minimise the environmental threats and consequences of developmental projects. It is for this reason, that the merits of environmental impact assessment are recognised in promoting sound ecological planning in developmental initiatives. Careful evaluation of the likely environmental implications of the project and development of logical and feasible options for mitigatory approaches are extremely important aspects that can be only determined through EIA studies.

As far as the ecological impacts of pipeline expansions are to be considered, it is obvious that the nature, magnitude and significance of pipeline related impacts are largely governed by the pipeline alignment, ecological significance of the area in the pipeline corridor, timing of construction activity and the choice of construction technology.

Our own experience of ecological assessment of several pipeline projects, demonstrate that the impacts on ecological and wildlife values of area under the pipeline projects can be wide ranging both in terms of significance and magnitude. Impacts of pipeline projects are not only known to be related to individual species like Gangetic river dolphin, crocodile, Baer's pochard (WII, 1994a), Indian grey wolf, caracal, Great Indian Bustard and chinkara (WII, 1995c) but may also relate to the wildlife habitats of conservation significance including Chambal (WII, 1993a), Ganga, Damodar and Rupnarayan rivers (WII, 1994a), Valayar reservoir (WII, 1995d) and desert and grassland habitats in Kutch (WII, 1995c).

The environmental challenge is therefore to identify the potential impacts of proposed linear expansions in order to develop safeguards that will enable their expansion to take place without significantly altering the natural environment, people and the wildlife values.

To this effect BPCL offered a consultancy to WII to undertake studies to evaluate the impacts of Bina-Jhansi-Kanpur pipeline project and to suggest necessary safeguards for minimising the ecological impacts. The following was the proposed scope of work for the studies to be undertaken by WII under BPCL’s offer of consultancy.

1. Undertake EIA studies for pipeline expansion project on the route alternative finalised by BPCL.

2. Suggest alternative route alignments to exclude forest/wildlife habitats en route the pipeline.

3. Suggest mitigatory measures wherever necessary.

4. Outline legal and statutory obligations to be fulfilled by BPCL for ensuring wildlife conservation in the project area.