The CPI(M) has said that the verdict in the Bhopal gas tragedy is of “direct relevance” to the Nuclear Liability Bill and maintained that the bill “bears the handiwork of the US nuclear industry lobby”.
The bill is “meant to safeguard the interests of the US companies who will supply reactors to India. In the event of a nuclear accident, they are to be exempted from any liability to pay compensation for the damages caused,” CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat said.
In an article in the forthcoming issue of party organ People’s Democracy, Mr Karat said the Congress-led government “has obliged the US by bringing this shocking piece of legislation which makes it near impossible to hold foreign suppliers of nuclear reactors to account in the case of an accident”.
Reiterating the Left demand for scrapping of the liability bill, he said, “The people will have to pay with their lives or health in the case of a nuclear accident, but the profits of US companies and the corporate sector in India should be protected by limiting their liability.”
How “eager the Manmohan Singh government is to fulfil its commitment to the US could be seen in the manoeuvres it resorted to, to bring the liability bill in Parliament,” Mr Karat said.
After being thwarted in the first half of the Budget Session from introducing the bill in the Lok Sabha, the government “had to strike deals” with parties like the SP and RJD to get it introduced in the fag end of the budget session, Mr Karat said. Mr Karat said that normally the bill should have gone to the standing committee on energy, but the government decided to route it through the standing committee on science and technology where a Congress MP is the chairman.
Mr Karat alleged that there was an effort by the government before the standing committee to delete the clause which gives the operator the limited right to recourse against the supplier in the case of a wilful action or gross negligence.
Observing that the compensation paid by the Union Carbide was Rs 713 crores, he said a nuclear accident may involve casualties on a much larger scale than Bhopal.