UPPSC 2019 Prelims GS Paper-I · Question 149 of 150

Correct — A, Motihari and Amlekhganj. On 10 September 2019 — three months before this paper was set — Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Nepal's Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli jointly inaugurated the Motihari-Amlekhganj petroleum products pipeline by video conference. It runs about 69 kilometres from the Indian Oil Corporation's terminal at Motihari in East Champaran district of Bihar to the Nepal Oil Corporation's depot at Amlekhganj, a fuel-depot town in Nepal's Terai, with a designed capacity of 2 million metric tonnes a year. It is South Asia's first cross-border petroleum products pipeline, and it replaced a road-tanker supply arrangement that had been running since 1973; Nepal Oil Corporation expected savings of roughly 2 billion Nepalese rupees a year in transport costs. The project was first proposed in 1996, an IOC-NOC agreement followed in 2004 and the execution agreement was signed in August 2015, after which work was slowed by the 2015 Nepal earthquake before being completed ahead of schedule.

• (b)Darbhanga and Amlekhganj — The Nepali end is right but the Indian end is wrong. Darbhanga is a city in the Mithila region of north Bihar with no role in this project; the Indian terminal of the pipeline is Indian Oil's installation at Motihari in East Champaran district, which is far closer to the Nepal border.
• (c)Motihari and Kathmandu — The Indian end is right but the Nepali end is wrong. The pipeline terminates at Amlekhganj in the Terai plains, where Nepal Oil Corporation's depot is located; it does not run up into the hills to Kathmandu. Extending the line deeper into Nepal was envisaged as a later phase, but the line inaugurated in September 2019 ended at Amlekhganj.
• (d)None of these — Option (a) states the pair exactly, so 'None of these' cannot be right. In a current-affairs question of this kind, 'None of these' is a fallback that only works if every named pairing is defective.

Nepal is landlocked and has no oil refinery of its own, so every litre of petrol, diesel and kerosene it consumes is imported from India, historically by road tanker through the Terai border points. A dedicated pipeline changes that logistics chain: it removes thousands of tanker journeys, cuts transit loss and pilferage, lowers freight cost and insulates supply from the road blockades and landslides that periodically disrupt the border. That is why the Motihari-Amlekhganj line is treated as a landmark of India's 'Neighbourhood First' policy rather than as a routine engineering project — it is the first petroleum products pipeline anywhere in South Asia to cross an international border.

Anchor the question to its date. It says 'September 2019', so it is asking about an event three months before the 15 December 2019 exam, and UPPSC expects the exact pair of terminal towns rather than a general appreciation of India-Nepal ties. Two of the four options are half-right by design: one keeps Amlekhganj and moves the Indian end, the other keeps Motihari and moves the Nepali end. The reliable way through is to remember both terminals as a unit — Motihari in Bihar's East Champaran on the Indian side, Amlekhganj in the Terai on the Nepali side — and to remember that a fuel pipeline ends at a storage depot in the plains, not at a hill capital.

• The Motihari (East Champaran, Bihar) to Amlekhganj (Nepal) petroleum products pipeline was inaugurated on 10 September 2019 by PM Narendra Modi and Nepal PM K.P. Sharma Oli through video conference.
• It is about 69 km long with a capacity of 2 million metric tonnes a year, laid by Indian Oil Corporation to supply Nepal Oil Corporation.
• It is South Asia's first cross-border petroleum products pipeline, replacing the road-tanker supply arrangement in place since 1973.
• Nepal Oil Corporation expected it to save about 2 billion Nepalese rupees a year in transport costs.
• The project was first proposed in 1996, an IOC-NOC agreement was reached in 2004 and the execution agreement was signed in August 2015; construction was delayed by the 2015 Nepal earthquake.

• Assuming a supply line to a landlocked neighbour must end at its capital; the pipeline ends at the Amlekhganj storage depot in the Terai, not at Kathmandu.
• Confusing this petroleum products pipeline with a crude oil pipeline — Nepal has no refinery, so what crosses the border is refined product.
• Mixing up Bihar's border districts: the Indian terminal is Motihari in East Champaran, not Darbhanga, Raxaul or Muzaffarpur.

UPPSC asks the concrete detail of a recent bilateral project — which two cities, which month, which country; UPSC prefers the strategic rationale, asking why India builds a particular piece of infrastructure across a border and what it achieves.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Motihari-Amlekhganj pipeline, inaugurated in September 2019, carries which of the following between India and Nepal?

  • (a)Crude oil for refining in Nepal
  • (b)Refined petroleum products
  • (c)Natural gas
  • (d)Drinking water

  Answer(b) Refined petroleum products — Nepal has no refinery of its own, so Indian Oil supplies finished products such as diesel, petrol and kerosene to Nepal Oil Corporation's depot at Amlekhganj.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Motihari-Amlekhganj pipeline is significant chiefly because it is

  • (a)the longest petroleum pipeline in India
  • (b)South Asia's first cross-border petroleum products pipeline
  • (c)the first pipeline built entirely with foreign assistance in Nepal
  • (d)India's first pipeline to carry natural gas across an international border

  Answer(b) South Asia's first cross-border petroleum products pipeline — this is the description used when the project was inaugurated on 10 September 2019, and it replaced a road-tanker arrangement running since 1973.