GoM for 1500 Crore Relief, Cabinet to Approve on Friday
Bhopal — Over a quarter of a century after a deadly gas leak killed thousands and affected lakhs others, the Group of Ministers on the Bhopal Gas Tragedy has recommended a compensation package of Rs 1500 crore to the Prime Minister, a special cabinet meeting will take a final decision on the matter this Friday.
According to available information, while next to kin of those killed by the disaster will receive Rs 10 lakh, those with permanent disabilities will get Rs 5 lakh. People with minor disabilities will get 3 lakh rupees as compensation.
Of the total Rs 1500 crore – the Center will shell out Rs 1320 crore while the other 180 crore will be contributed by the state government – of the total amount Rs 750 crore will be spent on paying compensation and another Rs 350 crore for clean up at the site of tragedy and on environment issues.
Rs 50 crore will be spent on setting up of an Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) study on the health hazards caused by the deadly Methyl Isocyanate and a sum of Rs 170 crore will be used for medical and socio-economic rehabilitation of the affected.
GoM has finalised its recommendations for the Prime Minister. The central government will fund the clean-up for now, but will ask in court for Dow Chemicals, which bought Carbide in 2001, to be held financially liable, the Madhya Pradesh High Court has been hearing the case since 2004.
The Centre will also file curative petitions seeking harsher punishment for the accused and review of earlier verdicts which diluted charges against them.
However, the GoM has failed to adopt a clear stand on several issues of extradition of Warren Anderson, then chairman of Union Carbide and the liabilities of Dow Chemicals, the present owners of Union Carbide.
Home Minister P Chidambaram has said that the GOM has identified several other issues which will be addressed in subsequent meeting of the panel.
The recommendations of the recently reconstituted ministerial panel come in the midst of stringent criticism – the government has faced – since a local court in Bhopal on June 7 handed two year sentences to seven accused of negligence in what ironically has come to be known as the worst industrial disaster, known to mankind.
While the news of the relief package sent ripples of satisfaction along the ground-zero of the tragedy in the old city area of the state capital, the recommendations of the GoM were widely misinterpreted by most, who believed that the government would soon disburse three lakhs to each of those affected by Methyl Isocyanate on the night of December 2-3, 1984.
(Based on Media Reports)
