By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter,
New Delhi: Survivors of Bhopal gas disaster have called of their strike after the Ministry of Chemicals & Fertilizers agreed to make ICMR and MP Government hospital records as the basis of compensation instead of Carbide designed categories. The revised figure will be submitted to the Supreme Court for the curative petition.
Five women survivors of the ill-famous 1984 Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal had begun an ‘indefinite’ fast at Jantar Mantar on Monday along with a thousand survivors and their children sitting in a dharna, demanding adequate compensation to the victims of the country’s worst industrial disaster.
Meanwhile, five Bhopal based organizations who were jointly leading the protest have called a press conference on Saturday at 11.30 at the dharna site.
Five Bhopal based organizations were jointly leading the protest and had called on the Prime Minister and the Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers to correct the errors of the previous government on the issue of compensation for the gas disaster.
These five survivors of the leak of poisonous gases were fasting without water demanding additional compensation for all affected people.
On the 3rd day of the fast, and Day 2 of the waterless fast, Bhopal disaster survivors were joined by 20 eminent citizens had joined them at the protest site in solidarity.
The Government of India had promised to act with alacrity to every need of the corporate citizen — single window clearances, expedited and simplified licensing procedures. But for the ordinary citizen, getting his or her due as a human being remains a tortuous, convoluted and fraught process.
Survivors of the disaster were demanding equal distribution of ex-gratia payment of Rs. 1 lakh among all affected people, the correction of the compensation being demanded by Government of India from Union Carbide in its curative petition in Supreme Court.
The Government is demanding just $1.2 billion while scientific estimates peg the additional compensation required at $8.1 billion.
Related:
TCN Special Series: Bhopal – Three Decades of Struggle