Sources told this newspaper that the proposal to set up an empowered commission to look after the interests of those affected by the 1984 Bhopal gas leak had been made by the previous GoM headed by senior Congress leader Arjun Singh but was rejected by a BJP-led Madhya Pradesh government.
Mr Arjun Singh, who had been heading the GoM since 2004, was, ironically, the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh when the gas leak took place in 1984. At present, Mr Singh himself is being slammed for his role in allowing former Union Carbide Corporation chief Warren Anderson to escape.
With the proposal for the empowered commission not passing muster with the BJP-led state government, the Centre was unable to push ahead with it, said sources. The Centre was chary of being accused of disturbing the federal structure if it went ahead with the commission without the state government’s concurrence.
“Not everybody agreed on the commission and, in particular, the then state government did not support it,” said sources. The state government reportedly took the plea that it would take care of the issues and thus no commission was needed. Thus the draft circulated by the Union ministry of chemicals and fertilisers for setting up the empowered commission had to be consigned to the dustbin.
The commission had been envisaged as a body that would have overseen the implementation of rehabilitation measures for the gas leak victims. It was also to have seen other aspects concerning the victims’ welfare, like research into the long-term consequences of inhaling the deadly methyl isocyanate. Other issues flagged for its attention were improvement in the socio-economic condition of the victims.