Bhopal Gas Tragedy

28-Jun-2010

Dear PM,

It is welcome news that government of India has decided to pay 10 lacs to dead and 5 lacs to the injured in Bhopal gas tragedy. In a way it is an acceptance of the fact that Arjun Singh and Rajib Gandhi did nothing for the victims of the tragedy. However there are few concerns over recommendations in GOM report

 

1. Fund allocated for compensation is only Rs 1500 crore - this is peanut. Half million people was exposed to gas leak. All of them should get compensation. Those who were dead and those who were permanently disabled should get equal compensation. Please remember that they have been deprived of justice for 26 years. Let's not do any politics with the number. If government of India can waive Rs 70,000 crore farmer loan, FM can definitely allocate Rs 30,000 crore for Bhopal gas victims.

 

2. It is a good decision to clean up the accident site at last. Impose stiff penalty of 5 crore for every day of delay. In last 26 years childern are born as BLIND, LAME, LIMBS TWISTED or missing, deafmute, brain-damaged, with hare-lips, cleft palates, webbed fingers, cerebral palsy, tumours where should be eyes. They were damaged in the womb by chemicals leaking from the same Union Carbide factory that killed thousands in 1984. I am horrified by the pictures posted in the site http://www.bhopal.org/. Unfortunately Arjun Singh and successive CMs of Madhya Pradesh and Rajib Gandhi and his successors didn't have time to look at them. For 26 years our politicians fought for who should pay for cleaning up the site. I wonder why our top politicians are so evil. Arjun Singh, Motilal Vora, Shukla, Patwa, Digvijay Singh, Uma Bharati, Babulal Gaur, Shivraj Chauhan, Rajiv Gandhi, Narashima Rao, Vajpayee and you sir should be prosecuted for not cleaning the toxic site of union carbide factory and thus causing the death and injury of thousands more. Family of each child born with any kind of birth defect should get a compensation of Rs 25,000 per month for life of the child.

 

3. I don't think Government can manage extradition of Warren Andersen who is 90 years old and cannot stand trial. Let's not try to pacify the emotion of Indians and media by false hope. We know he is an evil man who is protected by US government.

 

4. Prosecute Arjun Singh for misleading people of Bhopal about the safety of the Union Carbide Plant. Let me list down some of the violations of safety norms in the plant. My source of Information is Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster).

• Greenpeace asserts that as the Union Carbide CEO, Anderson knew about a 1982 safety audit of the Bhopal plant, which identified 30 major hazards and that they were not fixed in Bhopal but were fixed at the company's identical plant in the US
• The use of hazardous chemicals (MIC) instead of less dangerous ones
• Safety systems being switched off to save money—including the MIC tank refrigeration system which alone would have prevented the disaster
• Poor maintenance after the plant ceased production in the early 1980s, leading to buildup of stores of unused MIC
• The MIC tank alarms had not worked for four years
• There was only one manual back-up system, compared to a four-stage system used in the US
• The flare tower and the vent gas scrubber had been out of service for five months before the disaster. The gas scrubber therefore did not treat escaping gases with sodium hydroxide (caustic soda), which might have brought the concentration down to a safe level.
• To reduce energy costs, the refrigeration system, designed to inhibit the volatilization of MIC, had been left idle—the MIC was kept at 20 degrees Celsius (room temperature), not the 4.5 degrees advised by the manual

 5. Strip off Bharat Ratna from Rajiv Gandhi. He completely failed to manage the disaster of this magnitude. Government of India failed to provide adequate compensation for the treatment and rehabilitation of thousands of injured people. Government of India waited 16 long years to get compensation from UCC. Instead they should have disbursed USD 3.3 billion compensation originally claimed by the government from UCC within months. Lets me list down some of the inactions and criminal apathy shown towards rescue operation by both state and central governments at that time.

• After the accident, no one under the age of 18 was registered. The number of children exposed to the gases was at least 200,000. It is outrageous.
• Relief measures commenced in 1985 when food was distributed for a short period and ration cards were distributed - after so many months. It is ridiculous.
• Widow pension of the rate of Rs 200/per month (later Rs 750) was provided - we had some shameless politicians.
• One-time ex-gratia payment of Rs 1,500 to families with monthly income Rs 500 or less was decided
• The final compensation (including interim relief) for personal injury was for the majority Rs 25,000 (US$ 830). For death claim, the average sum paid out was Rs 62,000. How heartless our politicians are.
• Till 1992, 44 percent of the claimants still had to be medically examined - It was a cruel joke.
• a sum as large as Rs 10 billion is expected to be left over after all claims have been settled

So, in short the GoM report conceals more than it reveals. It is mere eyewash. It is an attempt to safeguard the image of Rajib Gandhi which is heavily tarnished by the revelation of the then foreign secretary Rasgotra about safe passage promised by government of India to Warren Andersen.