The support and cooperation provided by various organizations and individuals has greatly helped in the preparation of this report.

We sincerely acknowledge the authorities of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. for providing us the opportunity to undertake this study under their consultancy offer. We appreciate the technical support and cooperation of Mr. K. B. S. Negi, Project Incharge, MMPL Extension Project and Shri H. S. Yadav, Chief Manager Projects duriong the course of this study.

We would like to place on record our special gratitude to Shri V. M. Sane, Senior Manager Eng.; Shri A.N. Chaturvedi; Manager Eng.; Shri A.K. Biswas, Manager Eng.; Shri L.R. Jain, Manager Eng. and Shri L.R. Gangwar, Eng. Officer MMPL for their unfailing support during the course of field visit for this study. Their enthusiasm, support and professional inputs made our task both exciting and simpler. Shri D. Banerjee, Senior Manager Eng. has very patient to our constant demands of information and data and ungrudgingly helped us every time we approached. We gratefully acknowledge his cooperation.

We are grateful to Shri S.A. Thorat, Conservator of Forests, Dhule Circle for sparing his valuable time for discussions that proved helpful in enhancing our understanding of the project area and the issues to be addressed.

In WII, Ms Malvoka Onial joined this EIA team as a project personnel and provided inputs in the synthesis of information for the report. The painstaking efforts of Shri Narinder Singh Bist, Shri Mukesh Arora, Shri Dinesh Pundir and Shri Muthu Veerapan of EIA Cell and Computer Centre made it possible for us to present the report in its present form.

Dated: 31st July, 2001

(Dr. Asha Rajvanshi)

Faculty In-charge, EIA Cell