Gross discrepancies in figures have crept in between the actual numbers of gas victims and what has been recommended by the GoM for the Bhopal gas disaster.
Records show that a study of gas victims conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Bhopal, which was subsequently placed before the Supreme Court, show that over 5,00,000 residents belonging to 36 of the 56 municipal wards had been affected by the gas leak.
This data, was subsequently reaffirmed by the CBI inquiry in 1987, which also pegged the figure at over five lakhs.
The seven organisations championing the victims have expressed outrage that the GoM is offering a compensation of Rs 700 crores to only eight per cent of the affected public.
The Group of Ministers has stated that compensation will not be given to Category A (those who were present ) and Category B (temporarily injured but cured).
“A great medical fraud is being perpetuated because government figures submitted in different court affidavits states the figure of 22,000 deaths post 1992 but the government is claiming today that only seven victims have died since 1992 with all registration of deaths having been arbitrarily stopped in 1997,” said Sadhana Karnik, who has been convenor of the Bhopal Gas Peedith Sangharsh Sahayog Samiti for the last 25 years.
The seven organisations championing the cause of the Bhopal victims also question the government’s decision to take joint responsibility with the Madhya Pradesh state government of cleaning up the contamination site in and around the former Union Carbide plant for which an allocation of Rs 300 crores has been made.
These NGOs expressed surprised at how the Group of Ministers (GoM) had arrived at this figure without first conducting a technical assessment of affected area and nature of the contamination.
The government’s decision to rely on the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) report is a matter of surprise, especially since NEERI’s 1997 report had found the groundwater outside the factory “uncontaminated”.
These NGOs state, “The NEERI’s finding were subsequently refuted by more than 13 studies undertaken by governmental and non-governmental institutions, including the Central Pollution Control Board, which has found the water to be highly contaminated.
The groups also emphasised that apart from seeking extradition of Warren Anderson, officers of the co-accused Union Carbide Eastern Hongkong and senior officers of the Union Carbide Corporation must also be extradited.”
“The GoM’s deafening silence on this matter is shocking,” they said.