The Madhya Pradesh government’s hopes that the Union Carbide plant structure be converted into a memorial dedicated to victims of the world’s worst industrial disaster has been shot down by the nine-member GoM chaired by home minister P. Chidambaram.
The proposal was placed before them by Babulal Gaur, minister for Bhopal gas tragedy relief and rehabilitation, who was present at the meeting as a special invitee.
The GoM wants the entire Union Carbide structure to be dismantled with environmental remediation to be undertaken in order to clean up the 350 tonnes of toxic waste lying at the factory site. Mr Gaur had pointed out in the meeting that the cost of the memorial would be over `50 crores and would require the building of models that would describe how the accident had occurred. Mr Gaur’s suggestion has the support of all the six major NGOs who have been struggling to provide relief and rehabilitation to the victims during the last 25 years.
Minister of environment Jairam Ramesh maintains the “entire structure should be removed and disposed off,” and will be visiting Bhopal later May to discuss the entire bio-remediation processes that can be followed through to remove toxic waste in the Union Carbide complex.
Bio-remediation is a branch of biotechnology that operates through vegetation to sequester, extract or degrade hazardous waste present in soils and in the ground water.