By TCN News,
Bhopal: A group of survivors and victims of the December 1984 Union Carbide disaster popularly known as Bhopal Gas Tragedy, the world’s worst industrial catastrophe, along with the representatives of five NGOs working for their welfare have announced that they would be going on an indefinite fast without water soon.
Addressing a Press conference here on Friday the representatives of the five NGOs said that the indefinite fast is to remind the Central and Madhya Pradesh governments of their responsibilities towards the curative petition for compensation pending in the Supreme Court of India. The NGOs said that they have conveyed their decision to go on indefinite fast without water as part of their non-violent direct action for adequate compensation to the Prime Minister, Minister of Chemicals & Fertilizers and the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh.
Survivors of 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy during a protest at Janter-Manter in New Delhi on July 12, 2012
The NGOs charged that the Central and state governments have deliberately neglected their responsibilities towards the curative petition in the Supreme Court and is helping the American corporations walk away without paying the Bhopal survivors their due compensation. ‘
The NGOs pointed out that the government had filed a curative petition in the apex court on December 3, 2010, the 26th anniversary of the disaster seeking additional compensation from Union Carbide, USA and its owner The Dow Chemical Company, USA for the disaster in Bhopal.
“In the last four years there has been just one hearing on the curative petition and the governments at the Centre and the State have not moved a single application for urgent hearing on the matter”, said Ms Rachna Dhingra of the Bhopal Group for Information and Action, who had also contested the general election on AAP ticket.
“The governments have also not filed a single reply to the submissions made by Union Carbide Corporation, Dow Chemical and Eveready Industries India Limited in the last four years”, she added.
The organizations said that keeping in view the urgency of the curative petition they will be carrying out a series of non-violent direct actions to remind both the state and central governments of their constitutional duty of protecting the legal rights of adequate compensation.
The organizations pointed out that the curative petition by the Indian government downplays the damage caused by the disaster and seeks too little compensation.
“In 1985 the Central government had asked for 3.3 billion dollars as compensation that would be about 7 billion dollars today. Union Carbide then paid only 470 million Dollars; the least the government should be asking for is 6.5 billion dollars. But the curative petition only asks for 1.2 billion dollars”, pointed out Balkrishna Namdeo, president of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Nirashrit Pensionbhogi Sangharsh Morcha.
Rashida Bi, president of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmchari Sangh said: “The Central and state governments are presenting fraudulent data on death and injury caused by the disaster to justify the paltriness of the additional compensation. The government says only 5295 persons have died due to the disaster whereas its own medical research organization’s records show that twice this number died in the first 9 years itself.”
Nawab Khan, president of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangharsh Morcha pointed out that the figures published by the Madhya Pradesh Government show that there were 431495 chronic patients in the hospitals meant for gas affected people in 2010. “Counting in survivors who went to other health care institutions, we could say that well over 90 per cent of the persons exposed in 1984 continue to need hospital visits. However, the curative petitions of both the Central and the state governments state that 93 per cent of the victims went to the hospital just for a day.” he said.
It may be recalled here that in the intervening night of December 2-3, 1984 Union Carbide pesticide manufacturing factory had spewed poisonous Methyl Iso-cyanate gas whereby 3000 people had perished virtually instantly and over the years about 25000 have kissed death and the sad saga is still continuing uninterruptedly. About half a million are suffering from the side effects of the poisonous gas and several thousand people have been maimed for life.