For gas victims, SC relief order too little too late

But as Abdul Jabbar, an activist working for the victims, says: ‘‘Even when this amount is handed out to the victims, it will still be only a fourth of what the victims should have got as a result of the 1989 settlement. The number of people compensated is far in excess of what was estimated at the time of the original settlement and we will move the apex court again to remedy the injustice.’’

In 1989, the number of victims was estimated at 3,000 dead and 1,02,000 ‘‘injured’’. So far, compensation for the dead has been handed out in over 15,000 cases and the injury cases compensated already exceed 5.5 lakh.

This has been made possible because even as the SC had stipulated that the compensation for the dead could vary from Rs 1-Rs 3 lakh and for injuries from Rs 25,000-Rs 2 lakh, the final amount distributed was fixed at Rs 1 lakh for the dead and Rs 25,000 for the injured. And the state government deducted the monthly pension that was handed out till that point as interim relief. As a result, most of the injured got only Rs 15,000, and that too more 10 years after the tragedy.