Justification for Locating the Project in Forest Land Project Name - Consultancy Services for Preparation of Detailed Project Report for road approaches to Rail-cum-Road Bridge across river Ganga at Munger Ghat (NH-333B) near Munger in the State of Bihar . The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has been entrusted with the work of preparation of preparation of DPR for 2-lane with paved shoulder configuration of approaches to Rail-cum- Road Bridge under construction at Munger Ghat near Munger under contract package No. NHAI/DPR/BrApproach/BR/01(supplementary) The project is fresh alignment. It is approach to providing connectivity NH-80 to NH- 31 through rail cum road-bridge across river Ganga at Munger Ghat near Munger in the State of Bihar. The approach covers two district of Bihar state namely; Munger and Khagaria across river Ganga. On southern (Munger) side, the alignment of the proposed approach road originates from Chainage 74.700 of NH-80 on Munger side as reference Ch.0.000 for this approach and terminates at Ch. 9394 on the abutment of rail viaduct being constructed by Railways. The length of approach road on Munger side is 9.394 km. On northern (Khagaria) side approach originates from the last abutment of rail viaduct (Ch.075) and terminates at Ch 5198, which corresponds to Ch. 262.8 of NH-31 near Hiratol village. The length of approach road on Khagaria side is 5.123 km. The total length of the approach is 14.517 km. The total length of the project stretch selected for up-gradation is approx. 14.517 km in the district Khagaria, & Munger of State Bihar. The proposed widening requires diversion of 4.16 Ha. in Begusarai (2.88 Ha) & Munger (1.28 Ha) forest division. Therefore, the widening and realignment of this stretch requires forest clearance from Ministry of Environment, forest and climate change (GoI) as per forest conservation act 1980. The diversion of forest area has been limited to the minimum diversion because mostly existing alignment has been followed that satisfies the National Highway standards. As the project road is not crossing any forest area, only widening of existing road requireing diversion of foreset lamd along the existing road. GM(T)-cum- Project Director Natinal Highway Authority of India PIU Begusarai, Bihar .