The Supreme Court on Thursday gave clearance to the Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Gas Transportation Infrastructure for laying gas pipeline through the Great Indian Bustard Sanctuary in Maharashtra.

A bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan, Justices Arijit Pasayat and H S Kapadia imposed conditions while according sanction to the proposal to Reliance Gas Transportation Infrastructure, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries.

The application for the permission was referred to the Central Empowered Committee, a court-appointed committee that studies the environmental and ecological impact of all the projects set up in forest areas in the country. The pipeline would pass through Karnataka, Maharashtra and Gujarat for supplying gas in different parts of the country.

Reliance has planned to lay a Hyderabad-Uran-Ahmedabad Pipeline which would be an connect the Goa-Hyderabad-Kakinada and Jamnagar-Bhopal-Cuttack pipelines.

The Court said that five percent of the project cost would be deposited with the Compensatory Afforestation Management and Planning Authority’s (CAMPA) Compensatory Afforestation Fund, created by a judicial order for afforestation and realisation of the net present value of diverted forestland.

Out of the 940-km pipeline, costing Rs 11,500 crore, 83.9 kms would be inside the sanctuary. The cost of lying the pipeline in the sanctuary would be Rs 520 crore and its five percent — Rs 26 crore would be given to the fund. The fund would be spent for afforestation and educating people on the great Indian Bustard, an endangered bird.

The court also specified that no forest land in the sanctuary would be used for setting up of the project and only the pipeline would be put underground. Reliance Advocate Mukul Rohtagi said the company would lay a pipeline that would cover an area of 241.18 hectares in the sanctuary.

Reliance Gas Transportation Infrastructure claimed that transportation of natural gas and hydrocarbon was most economical, safe and environment-friendly and would not cause any emissions and congestion on the roads.
Rohtagi submitted that the company had obtained the necessary clearance from the Ministry of Environment and Forests and Pollution Control Boards of the states for diversion of forest land for the pipeline.