Anniversary once more for Bhopal: All gas, no relief

The Madhya Pradesh government’s denial of a ‘‘foreign hand’’, shock-tactics by Greenpeace activists and a ham-hande...

The Madhya Pradesh government’s denial of a ‘‘foreign hand’’, shock-tactics by Greenpeace activists and a ham-handed police response. For residents, the incident that changed their lives on the night of Dec 2, 18 years ago, has already begun to slip into a farce.

More than 60 Greenpeace activists were picked up recently while trying to break into the Union Carbide factory premises to clean up the contamination. Police claimed that the activists had been prevented from setting the factory on fire.

NAILING THE LIE

» Relief schemes to be finished in 5 years has already taken 12 years, work pending in most categories like medical, social and economic rehabilitation
» According to a government handout, rehabilitation work due to be completed by 1995 was extended till 1999
» MP drawing up plans to disburse Rs 4 cr for providing jobs to 2,000 gas victims though Centre sanctioned the sum in 1997
» Govt release claims giving job training to 1,581 persons. Adds that 152 industrial sheds have been built for them. NGOs say sheds are non-functional
» State still to supply safe drinking water to colonies though Centre sanctioned Rs 3 crore for the project in 1997
» 8,000 tonnes of harmful chemicals still lying on factory site
» Number of cancer cases among victims growing. A government release reports 771 cancer patients under treatment since April 1998.
» A study of prescriptions found that ‘‘26.3 per cent of the drugs prescribed were harmful, 48.5 per cent were useless … and 7.6 pc were both harmful and useless’’. Victims denied proper medi care with most hospitals and clinics only partially operational. ENS

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Since then, the local media has had a field day. One article took the state’s intelligence department to task for failing to anticipate the ‘‘dangerous plan of the foreigners’’ and went on to ask whether these ‘‘suspicious foreigners were hand-in-glove with Dow Chemicals (which has bought over Union Carbide)’’.

Several local NGOs have questioned the Greenpeace tactics. Abdul Jabbar of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan (BGMUS) and Balkrishna Namdeo of the Gas Peedit-Neerashrit Pension Bhogi Morcha said on Nov 29 that Greenpeace activists were trying to divert attention from more serious issues.

Sources say at the heart of the squabble was differences between local groups like Satinath Sarangi’s Bhopal Group for Information and Action and Jabbar’s BGMUS. Greenpeace is working with Sarangi’s group. As for the clean-up itself, the government took 18 years to recognise that the contamination has soiled groundwater.

Jabbar today charged CM Digvijay Singh with betraying the gas victims. He alleged that when Singh was an MP, he had raised a number of questions in Parliament about gas victims but ‘‘did not do anything’’ for them after becoming CM.

Common supplies to joint training: Armed Forces look at steps ahead of theatrisation

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