New Delhi, July 10: The minister of road transport and highways, Mr Kamal Nath, reinforced the government point of view by stating that the financial liability for the Bhopal gas tragedy must be placed on Dow Chemicals.
A key member of the reconstituted Group of Ministers (GoM) on the Bhopal tragedy, Mr Nath believes, “We will have to use every legal method available to bring Dow to book since they have purchased the assets of Union Carbide and are therefore liable for all the consequences of these assets.”
“We are petitioning the Jabalpur court (the MP High Court whose principal bench is in Jabalpur) for a quick judgment but we don’t want to wait for the judgment in order to recover compensation. We want to move ahead,” the minister stated.
Mr Nath expressed apprehension that “there could be more than one million tons of toxic waste lying in and around the disaster side. The question facing us is how do we deal with it? We are sitting on a toxic volcano.”
Launching a scathing attack on successive Central governments, the Madhya Pradesh minister, Mr Babulal Gaur, blamed them for denying relief and justice to millions of gas victims.
“Their indifference can be gauged from the fact that the Centre has not provided a single paisa for the treatment of gas-affected persons. Nor have they provided financial assistance in the running of the six hospitals and 127 dispensaries providing treatment to the victims. The state government has been spending Rs 45 crore annually on their treatment with nothing coming from the Centre,” Mr Gaur said.
He took the Centre to task for having announced a relief package ranging of up to Rs 5 lakh for 42,000 victims but having excluded over five lakh victims who were also affected.