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Bhopal:
Five organizations working for the Bhopal victims of the December
1984 Union Carbide disaster have accused the Central and state
governments of downplaying the damage caused by the American
company in the curative petitions filed in the Supreme Court.
Addressing a joint press conference here July 23 the organizations
demanded that in place of Rs. 3,000-6,000 crores the government
should ask the Union Carbide and its current owner Dow Chemical to
pay over Rs. 37,000 crores for deaths and personal injuries. The
organizations stated that they will start agitations in support of
this demand from July 25.
The organizations said that the injury categories assigned to the
victims were unscientific and without basis and demanded that the
government seek at least Rs. 6 lakhs as compensation per victim
from the Union Carbide.
The representatives of five organizations viz. Bhopal Gas Peedit
Mahila Stationery Karmchari Sangh, Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush
Sangharsh Morcha, Bhopal Gas Peedit Nirashrit Pension Bhogi
Sangharsh Morcha, Bhopal Group for Information & Action and
Children Against Dow Carbide addressed the Press conference
Satinath Sarangi of Bhopal Group for Information & Action said
that recently their organizations have obtained “Top Secret”
documents under RTI Act that show that Union Carbide was proposing
a settlement within three months of the disaster. He said that
because of its collusion with the American company, the Indian
government introduced injury categories and later paid the minimum
amount of Rs. 25,000 as compensation to 94 per cent of the victims
with lifelong injuries by arbitrarily assigning them temporary
injury category. Satinath said that Union Carbide had proposed
payment of Rs. 1 lakh for each death and six years later this is
the amount that the government actually paid the Bhopal victims.
Balkrishna Namdeo of Bhopal Gas Peedit Nirashrit Pension Bhogi
Sangharsh Morcha said that on the basis of the figures published
by the government’s apex medical research organization, Indian
Council of Medical Research, at least 20,0000 people have died
till 2009.
He said that ICMR’s research shows
that between 1984 and 1989 there were 3500 spontaneous abortions
as a result of gas exposure and these need to be included in
counting disaster related loss of life.
Namdeo said that in the curative
petition filed in the Supreme Court, the government has gone
against the findings of its own research agency and presented a
ridiculously low figure of 5295 deaths as a consequence of the
disaster.
Rashida Bee of Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmchari Sangh,
who is involved with rehabilitation of children of gas affected
parents with congenital malformations, said that in the curative
petition the government has not asked for any compensation for
damages caused to the next generation of victims.
She said that studies published in
international scientific journals such as the Journal of American
Medical Association and the American Journal of Industrial
Medicine show that the poisons of Union Carbide have affected the
next generation too.
Rashida Bee pointed out that in October 1991 the Supreme Court had
directed the Indian government to provide medical insurance
coverage to the next generation of victims but this order remains
to be implemented.
The organizations stated that the basis of the curative petitions
filed by the central and state governments is that the figures of
death and injury presented in 1989 were not correct. However,
these figures have not been corrected in the current curative
petition and as such the Supreme Court cannot provide justice to
the Bhopal victims even if it wants to.
The organizations said that for the last one year they have been
writing to the Prime Minister and Group of Ministers on Bhopal on
the specific issue of deaths and health damage caused by Union
Carbide in Bhopal but they have not received any response so far.
It may be recalled here that 40 tones of methyl isocyanate, (MIC –
a highly volatile toxic chemical), gas spewed from the pesticide
plant – owned by Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL), a subsidiary
of Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), USA – in the intervening night
of December 2-3, 1984. The gas leak killed 3,000 people instantly
and more than 25,000 over the years and inflicting grievous
injuries on countless others. Many were deformed for life and many
children born with the toxic effect are sick and with congenital
malformations. It also affected 100,000 people that night and
estimates are that more than 500,000 continue to suffer till date.
Last year, a lower court in Bhopal had awarded mere two years of
imprisonment to seven convicted Union Carbide officials for the
incident.
(pervezbari@eth.net)
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