Campaigns
Dow At MY School?
Event Ideas
Resources
Skills Toolbox

Active Schools
Dow & YOU
Victories
Photos

Campaign Demands
Dow's Liabilities
Dirty Dow
Quotes
Volunteer
Donations

Information
Action
Testimonials
Teaching Bhopal
Links

Who We Are
Members Forum
SfB Awards

Join our "updates" list

Support the Bhopalis’ Right to Live!!
Survivors on dangerous hunger strike against hostile State Government

Twenty-two years after their loved ones were gassed to death, their health stolen, their dreams shattered, survivors of the 1984 gas disaster in Bhopal continue to suffer at the hands of their own government. For years, the Madhya Pradesh state government has delayed and denied basic means of survival to tens of thousands of Bhopalis: things like poison-free drinking water, competent health care, and jobs or pensions for those too sick to work. But the Bhopalis believe in their own right to live, and a year ago a group of Bhopal survivors walked 500 miles – from Bhopal to Delhi – to ask the Prime Minister of India for help. Although both the Indian Government and the Supreme Court have ordered the MP government to act, little has been done and the Bhopalis have launched an indefinite hunger strike to demand justice. If the state government doesn’t take action, the Bhopalis - gassed by Carbide, poisoned by contaminated water, forced into destitution – may be forced to starve themselves to death.

Take action!
Read the demands
Read the dharna blog (daily updates)
Read about the hunger strikers
Background information

- top -

Take Action!

Send a FREE FAX to the State Government, demanding action!

Call-in to the MP Government! If you're calling from the United States, don't forget to preface your calls with the 011 country code.

a) Call Mr. R.C. Sahni, Chief Secretary:
+91-755 2441370 (office)
+91-9425-151-652 (mobile)
+91 755- 2441848 (office)
+91 755 2441351 (Personal Assistant/home)

b) Call Mr. Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Chief Minister:
+91-755 2441581 (office)
+91-755 2441033 (office)
+91-755 2441096 (office)
+91 755 2442231 (Home)
+91 755 2441751 (home)
+91 755 2442255
+91 755 2442241

Other numbers to call:

The Collector, B.K. Mishra:
+91-94251 85550

Anurag Jain, Personal Secretary of the Chief Minister:
+91-94250-20285

Call M.M. Upadhyay, Secretary, Bhopal Gas Relief
+91 94250 11863
+91 755 2441620

Superintendent of Police, Anant Kumar Singh:
+91 94251 76688

Additional Superintendent of Police, Dr. G.K. Pathak:
+91 94253 02001

Additional District Magistrate Mr. Ojha:
+91 94250 19501

CSP Dharamvir Singh Yadav:
+91 94253 04000

Sub Divisional Magistrate: HK Sharma:
+91 94250 04767

Women's Police Station:
+91 755 2443860

Shyamala Hills Police Station:
+91 755 2661477

Principal Secretary, Mr. Iqbal Singh:
+91 755 2441314

Call Saxena, CM's Personal Assistant
+91 755 9425171925

Call MM Upathiya, Minister of Health
+91 755 94250-11863 (mobile)

- top -

Send an EMAIL to the State Government, demanding action.


Send a Letter to the Editor supporting the Bhopalis' demands. You can edit and use this template letter (remember to keep your letter shorter than 200 words!):

Send your letters to these national and MP papers

- top -

The Demands

1. HEALTH CARE (see background)
..........• Provide free treatment to residents of communities near the Union Carbide factory with contaminated groundwater.
..........• Scrap Rogi Kalyan Samitis in hospitals meant for treatment of people affected by Union Carbide’s poisons.
..........• Fill vacant posts of Specialists, Physicians, Paramedicals, Technicians and other workers.
..........• Secure jobs at gas relief hospitals at par with regular government jobs.
..........• Implement a Drug Policy for gas relief hospitals.
..........• Increase budgetary allocation by at least five times on Ayurvedic, Unani, Homeopathic and Yoga treatment
..........• Ensure adequate diagnostic and other equipment at gas relief hospitals.
..........• Computerize and network gas relief hospitals to improve treatment and administration.

2. ECONOMIC REHABILITATION (see background)
..........• Initiate employment for 10,000 survivors of the disaster in areas already provided.
..........• Ensure production of environment friendly products, in conditions suitable to survivor's health.
..........• Ensure available funds in government schemes for loans and grants for self-employment.
..........• Ensure gainful employment of all persons trained by the Department of Gas relief.

3. SOCIAL SUPPORT (see background)
..........• Provide Rs. 1000/- per month as social support to:
....................a) gas affected families below poverty line
....................b) destitute individuals above the age of 60 years
....................c) families of children with congenital malformations due to Union Carbide's poisons.
....................d) women widowed due to the gas disaster

4. SUPPLY OF WATER AND CONTAINMENT OF TOXIC WASTE (see background)
..........• Ensure adequate supply of safe water to the communities affected by ground water contamination as per the order of the Supreme Court of India within the next 3 months.
..........• Build walls around the factory premises and solar evaporation ponds too.
..........• Contain and secure the hazardous waste inside the Union Carbide factory to stop further pollution of soil and ground water and for shipment to USA or any other OECD country for safe final disposal.
..........• Make public all information on contamination of ground water and soil caused by the Union Carbide factory.
..........• Ensure that the “polluter pays” principle is upheld in the matter of clean up of toxic contamination in and around the Bhopal Union Carbide factory.

5. ADMINISTRATION (see background)
..........• Ensure availability of funds for long term relief and rehabilitation of people poisoned by Union carbide at least for the next 30 years.
..........• Set up an office for the Coordination Committee on Bhopal (CCB) under direction from the PMO.
..........• Form sub-committees with representatives of survivors' organisations for oversight of work of relief and rehabilitation as decided by the CCB.
..........• Ensure that survivors have priority for employment as staff in the Department of Gas Relief.

- top -

Profiles of the Bhopalis on Hunger Strike

SHEHZADI BI
Her mehndi-colored hair matches her feisty personality. But there was a time when her locks weren't a rusty orange, but a rich black instead. Shehzadi Bi spent her younger days in Bidisha Dilla, one of four children in a farming community. Her fondest memories as a child are of playing with her dolls. Education was never important in the family, so she did not learn how to read or write. Before she came to Bhopal Shehzadi Bi used to make a living by sewing and rolling beedis. It wasn't until 1982 that her marriage let her to the city she would now call home.

She remembers that night like a haunting nightmare that won't go away.

"It was 12:30 am. We were sleeping in a rented room at Kazi Camp when the stench of burning chilies stung our nostrils. All I remember is that I was losing consciousness while running. I was dumped into a truck. When I regained consciousness, I saw that vomit and other bodily fluids had soiled my clothes. It was then that I realized that they were my own."

She had four children at the time of the gas disaster and has had two more since that time. Her son who was six at the time has now developed a cancer in his leg that had to be operated on. One of her daughters became blind and has to hear the all-too-frequent complaints of her in-laws: we got stuck with a blind daughter-in-law. Shehzadi's husband was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Everyone suffers from breathlessness, while the females are plagued with menstrual problems. Shehzadi Bi currently lives in Blue Moon Colony where she bought a flat. Little did she know it is a water-contaminated community. The water is dripping with poisons like lead, mercury, and chloroform- substances that should not be ingested-yet her family was forced to drink it until the water tanks with clean water were put into her community. Do they think about moving out of that area into one where water safety is not an issue? "How can we even think about moving to another place when we don't have the money for it? Only when we have the means can we hope to see such dreams."

"I fasted on the Padyatra to New Delhi in 2006. That lasted for seven days." Weakness is inevitable, but Shehzadi Bi has prepared herself for anything that may come her way. Losing her life, for example. "If my death saves another six lakh people from dying, then it's worth it."

GUDDI BI
She was married off at the tender age of twelve. It was then that she had to leave her three sisters, one brother, and the mother that single-handedly raised all five of them in Pathari. Her husband died eleven years after their marriage, and Guddi Bi became the person her mother used to be, raising her three children on her own.

She came to Bhopal three years ago, looking for work, and settled in Blue Moon colony, a water-contaminated community. Guddi Bi does not know what it was like to live through the gas disaster. She was lucky that way. But she sees what the gas has done to the people around her, like the children who are born with enlarged heads and deformed limbs. Ever since she has moved to Bhopal, she has her own problems to deal with. It started with coughing and skin rashes, and the water continued to create a whole new set of difficulties. Her nineteen year old son is unfit to work due to weakness. Similarly, her youngest son suffers from the poisons; "One time he drank the water and blood came out of his mouth." Her daughter experiences a host of gynecological problems, like white discharge and excessive cramps. Stomach aches are normal now. Guddi Bi struggles to survive by selling what she can find in junkyards heaped with trash. Why not go back to a land that's not polluted with poisons? "Someone's got to earn for the family, and you can do that in Bhopal. We can't go back." Despite her fairly recent arrival in Bhopal, Guddi Bi has immersed herself in the Bhopalis' struggle for justice. She went on the march to New Delhi last year with her son. Now she is going on an indefinite fast.

JABBAR KHAN
"My father worked in the Railway Service, and I followed in his footsteps for three years. Then I decided I want to do something on my own." An only child, a lot was expected from Jabbar as the sole male of the family. He wanted to open a tea stall, which he ran successfully. He smiles as he recalls the day he got married to Nafisa: June 15, 1984. Six months later, his life would change forever.

Eyes stinging. Vomit. Running frantically in any direction. We've heard it a thousand times before, yet it hurts every time. Jabbar and Nafisa stayed at the train station for two days and then took the train to Beena. Three years later, they returned to Bhopal and made Gupta Nagar, a water-contaminated community, their new home. It is a water-contaminated area which has taken its toll on Jabbar and his family. In 2003, Jabbar's blood pressure was sky high; at one point his heart stopped. His five children, aged nine to nineteen, suffer from stomach aches and regular fevers.

Despite the anguish he lives with, Jabbar has dreams of his own. After his father passed away, he discovered his passion for cooking. "My favorite food of all time would have to be Gajar-Matar Sabji," he says with glittering eyes. He wants to open a dhaba, "the kind they have on roadsides." He has even thought of a name. "We'll name it after my youngest daughter, Yasmeen."

RASHIDA BI
Her life has been a series of one struggle after another. For Rashida Bi, going hungry is nothing new. "My father was always sick. We had to send him to Indore for treatment, but we couldn't afford the train ticket. Sometimes we wouldn't get anything to eat for two, maybe three days. One day when he was on the train, he died. Just like that."

Born in Suhagpur, Rashida Bi was the eldest of seven children. "My parents didn't believe in educating us at a school, so they only taught me how to read Urdu, not write it." She was married at thirteen, and rolled beedis for a living, trying to support herself since her mentally sick husband couldn't. "He would leave randomly, sometimes for years, and then come back and not remember anything. He left while I was pregnant with our son, and came back after our boy died from pneumonia." Her son was seven days old. Her mother-in-law would not let her eat until she rolled four thousand beedis; one thousand beedis gave her two rupees. That was life before December 2, 1984 happened.

"We couldn't walk for more than half a kilometer. Our eyes were swelling, we could hardly open them. Even if we did open them all we saw was corpses. Tons of dead bodies. It was better to keep our eyes closed. Bodies were dumped by the truckload into the Narmada River. People thought to be dead were burnt, only to start flailing in pain. When we went to the hospitals to find our missing relatives, the families were being given Rs. 10,000 per death. We refused the money; what would we do with it if we did not have those we cared for?"

Those that she cared for suffered the wrath of the gas. Her father, two sisters, and her sister-in-law died due to cancer. Her husband could no longer use his arms and legs. After six months in Suhagpur post-gas leak, Rashida Bi came back to Bhopal to find work. She signed up for the tailoring jobs the government was providing, but after a three month training and work for a few more months, she was told that the work was not needed anymore. After another bout of unemployment, she started working at a government-sponsored stationery unit. At the end of the month, she received six rupees. "Six rupees for a month of work? We should have gotten at least a hundred and fifty rupees. The anger I felt that day is still in me." It is that anger that has fueled Rashida Bi's motivation to do all that she has done. A leader of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karamchari Sangh, she is fighting to ensure that the gas-affected women get the same salary and employment benefits as their peers at the government stationary unit. In 2004, she and Champa Devi won the Goldman Environmental Prize for their environmental activism in Bhopal. She is also one of the Managing Trustees of the Chingari Trust which provides medical treatment to chidren with congenital deformities as a result of the gas and contaminated ground. "We aren't asking for much, just the right to live a decent life," she says about the current campaign. This will be her fourth hunger strike. "We are ready to lose our lives. Maybe the government will open its eyes with our deaths."

RACHNA DHINGRA
Rachna Dhingra is originally from Delhi, and was just six years old when the world's worst industrial disaster struck Bhopal in 1984. She was 14 when she moved to the US with her mother and later joined a student group that took up the issue of the Bhopal gas disaster. Rachna graduated with a business degree in 2000 and came back to stay in Bhopal in January 2003. Now she is associated with the Bhopal Group of Information and Action. What is interesting is that before coming to India she was associated with Dow Chemical, the parent company of Union Carbide Corporation. It was the UCC factory in Bhopal from where methyl isocyanate gas leaked, killing thousands. "Dow was a client of the company I worked for," says the computer consultant.

"I love what I am doing. For me it is not a sacrifice but something that helps me sleep better at night without any regret. What angers me most is that even 21 years after the disaster, the government can allow people to drink contaminated water. Every person is moved by something in his or her life. For me it was the fact that the company I was working for was more concerned about profits than lives of the people. Twenty-two years is a long time to wait for justice but I am hopeful that eventually everyone will get justice."

SATINATH SARANGI
Satinath Sarangi is a metallurgical engineer-turned-activist who arrived in Bhopal the day after the disaster when he was 30, and stayed on to become a key figure in the Bhopal struggle along with survivor activists. "When I compare myself with my friends who were there with me in engineering, I find myself much happier. It is the spirit of the people I have been working with that has made me go on. Looking back, I would not like my life to shape up in any other way. The Sambhavna Trust Clinic, where I work, is funded by individuals. We do not take money from foundations like Ford or Rockfeller, which give huge amounts. To earn a living, I have worked as a feature writer and also as a contract labourer in a paper board mill".

- top -

Background

1. HEALTH CARE

The medical crisis that began in the aftermath of the Bhopal gas disaster remains acute, twenty-one years later. Neglect, corruption, and ignorance have all conspired to characterize the health of the gas victims as either a non-issue or an insoluble problem. Today over 120,000 chronically ill survivors are in need of medical attention, with an estimated 10 to 15 people dying every month from exposure-related illnesses. Breathlessness, persistent cough, diminished vision, early-age cataracts, loss of appetite, menstrual irregularities, recurrent fever, back and body aches, loss of sensation in limbs, fatigue, weakness, anxiety, and depression are the most common symptoms among survivors. The alarming rise in cancers, tuberculosis, reproductive system problems and other problems such as growth retardation among children born after the disaster remain poorly treated. Although many hospitals must provide free treatment to survivors of the gas disaster, reports of the Supreme Court Committee for Medical Monitoring have exposed their miserable state of health care. The reports highlight the lack of specialists and doctors, standardized treatment protocols, quality medicines, diagnostic equipment and system of monitoring health status in the hospitals meant for gas victims. Although the report of the state government’s Centre for Rehabilitation Studies clearly points out that people are falling ill due to ground water contamination, these people continue to be denied free medical care at gas relief hospitals.

WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?

..........• There are no treatment protocols specific to diseases related to gas exposure. Neither the government gas hospitals or the corporate-sponsored Bhopal Memorial Hospital Trust (BMHT) have developed a system of treatment for gas victims, despite the fact that the same toxicity can manifest in many different ways. The most recent study approximating a treatment protocol is by the ICMR and is 17 years old, limited, and unknown to most Bhopal doctors. As a result, gas syndrome is treated symptomatically, while the root cause is rarely addressed. This symptomatic treatment provides only temporary relief, if any, and possible interactions between drug therapies and gas toxicity are not considered.
..........• Research is inadequate and poorly linked to treatment. Within the general neglect of the research on health consequences of the disaster certain areas were more neglected than others. Gynecological health impacts, documented by independent groups, were not considered worth studying by ICMR, reflecting the gender bias of the medical establishment. Inattention to neurological, immunological, endocrinological and chromosomal consequences possibly have their origin in the absence of a toxicological perspective in defining research areas.
..........• Many crucial aspects of the medical crisis are ignored by the government, both in research and treatment. No importance is given to the crucial area of gynecological health, mental health, or community health. Additionally, those affected by water contaminated by the abandonment of the Union Carbide factory are currently given no care at all.
..........• Excessive and/or harmful prescription practices and total lack of alternative treatments. A 1999 study by the Sambhavna Trust Clinic showed that only 18% of the prescriptions given at BMHT were appropriate given the diagnosis, with all other prescriptions being either useless, harmful or both. Similarly, in 1990, a study at government hospital found that 35% of drugs given were either useless or harmful. Systems of health care such as Ayurveda, Unani, and Yoga that are known to provide sustained relief without contributing to the toxic load, have been given only token recognition in the official system of medical care. The government budgetary allocation to medical care under these systems is less than 1%. In the medical care plans of the BMHT these systems have no place at all.
..........• Government does not focus on prevention, cure, or quality of life. The nature of gas syndrome has been recognized by many groups, including 1994 recommendations of the International Medical Commission on Bhopal as necessitating a long-term, systematic, community health based approach to healing. However, rather than developing this infrastructure Bhopal has instead developed facilities for acute care and pharmaceutical distribution, such that it now has well over the number of hospital beds - over 1.25 per thousand - recommended by the World Health Organization. Rather than creating an infrastructure for healing and improving the quality of life for those affected, government money earmarked for the survivors medical needs (as well as corporate money put into the Bhopal Memorial Hospital Trust) has gone towards capital intensive projects such as hospital construction, and much of it has gone into the pockets of officials and builders in the process. Budgetary allocations to community health services have remained under 2% and there are no community health workers in the employment of either the government or the BMHT. PEOPLE HAVE BEEN GIVEN NO INFORMATION ON DAMAGES CAUSED TO THEIR BODIES.
..........• Discrimination against interests of gas victims. The BMHT was not built with the needs of gas victims in mind. It is only guaranteed to provide free treatment for them until 2008, 8 years after its opening. According to employees it has an institutionalized policy of treating private patients much better than victims, referred to as “gasees.” While a private patient will get the results of an MRI within 24 hours, a gas victim will wait 5-6 months. Meanwhile, the necessary long-term funding for the continuation of the government infrastructure for treating gas victims has not been guaranteed.

- top -

2. ECONOMIC REHABILITATION

There has been hardly any effort to systematically document the economic and social impacts of the continuing disaster in gas and contamination affected areas of Bhopal. Over 70% of the exposed population has been in the unorganized sector -- mostly people earning subsistence wages through hard physical labour. A large number of men and women who pushed hand carts, carried loads, dug soil, repaired cars, and did other jobs can no longer pursue their trades after being exposed to the gas leak and continuing water contamination.

Given the complete inadequacy of official rehabilitation efforts the loss of regular income has driven tens of thousands of families to chronic starvation conditions. Compounding the problem, loss of income also makes people borrow money from local money lenders who charge up to 200% interest so that chances of paying back are low and debts keep growing.

The government programmes for economic rehabilitation have been badly designed and only a few have been implemented. While an estimated population of 50,000 is in need of alternative employment, currently less than 100 gas victims have found regular jobs under the government's scheme.

Miserably Failed Attempts
Soon after the disaster the government of Madhya Pradesh set up 50 training and production centers to train gas-affected women in a variety of trades such as sewing, embroidery, and stationery manufacturing. Today there are only two -- the rest closed within four years. Only 90 women are currently employed in those two. The government also closed down the stitching centres, where over two thousand gas survivors had been employed.

Three years after the disaster, in 1987, a special industrial area for training and employment of over 10,000 survivors was inaugurated and 152 work sheds were constructed at a cost of Rs. 8 crores. Construction of the sheds was completed in 1991. The results, however, have been dismal: Of the 152 sheds, 55 were given out to private entrepreneurs, 52 were occupied by the Rapid Action Force police division, and the rest remain vacant. Of the 55 sheds taken by entrepreneurs, industries were launched in only 20 sheds. From a total expenditure of Rs 8.19 crores (US $1.78 million), only 243 gas-affected people found employment. (Source: Clouds of Injustice, Amnesty International, 2004.)

A programme offering women survivors tailoring jobs ran successfully from 1986 to 1992 employing 2300 women and made a yearly profit of Rs. 1 crore. The rehabilitation centres where these jobs were offered were also places where women survivors could gather, share their concerns, and organize themselves. However, this programme was terminated without any reason in July 1992.

One obstacle to the success of employment programmes is the insensitivity of the government to the fact that many of the survivors who are willing and able to work simply have special needs and limitations. Many, for instance, can only work for a few continuous hours at a time. The Fact Finding Mission on Bhopal recently found that out of their study sample, 58.7 percent could not do continuous work without rest for more than four hours. 75.7 percent could do no more than six hours at at time. Only 6.8 percent of the total sample could work for more than six hours.

Gas exposed people who work in textile and paper mills are more sensitive to the occupational hazards specific to those work environments (bad air quality) and are often absent from work as much as 15 days a month due to illness.

Simple sensitivity to special needs like frequent breaks and clean air is all many gas and contamination affected people need to be able maintain employment. The survivors have always sought jobs and not dole -- jobs in accordance with their health condition. How is it that the government has spent more than 70 crore rupees on rehabilitation schemes, yet only about a hundred gas survivors have found solid employment?

- top -

3. SOCIAL SUPPORT

To date the government has no record of the social condition of the persons who have been widowed, orphaned, or have been permanently disabled as a result of the gas disaster.

There has been no official attention directed towards the urgent need of lifelong pension for these suffering people. The state government has deemed its work of social rehabilitation to be complete after constructing a few schools and just under 2500 houses in a settlement called the 'Widows Colony'.

The Fact Finding Mission of Bhopal of 1999-2004 found that less than half of gas-affected workers were able to continue in their pre-1984 occupations and that 32% have been rendered completely unemployed.

Children who were orphaned by the 1984 gas disaster were never given more than a pittance and today are left in their 20's without educations and little to keep them afloat, especially when burdened with medical expenses for treatment of gas-related health problems.

The main attempt the government has made at social support for Bhopal survivors has been housing programme whose intention was to provide low cost housing through an ambitious scheme to 40,000 victims. The plan, however, was finally revised to only 3,000 houses, of which only 2486 were constructed by March 1999 and only 1666 were occupied.

Right now the only social safety net Bhopal's gas survivors have to fall back on is the social security pension given to people over 60 years old and widowed women and orphans. This is only 150 rupees per month - about £2, or $3.50 USD per month.

What Is Needed
First, thorough research must be conducted to identify and locate those in need of social support as a direct or indirect result of the gas disaster in Bhopal. Then a comprehensive social safety net must be put in place for people who have lost income earners and people who are either too old or too disabled to support themselves.

- top -

4. SUPPLY OF WATER AND CONTAINMENT OF WASTE

Today, the Union Carbide plant remains essentially as it was on the eve of the December 3rd disaster. Piles of toxic waste stored above and below ground have been neither contained nor removed and continue to pose a serious threat to the health of nearby residents. Wastewater evaporation ponds 400 meters north of the factory continue to leach toxins into the soil and water. Lumps of solid carbaryl fallen from a rotten tank lie in the open air, leaking a dense tar into the ground. Elsewhere in the abandoned factory, thousands of sacks of pesticides lie in dilapidated and crumbling warehouses. Drums of Sevin tar stand exposed to the elements. The monsoons of two decades have washed them deep into the soil and polluted the underground aquifer from which 20,000 of Bhopal's citizens pump their water. Even though most residents know that the water is dangerous, they have no other options.

DRINKING POISON
Health surveys in the affected areas have found that one in two suffers from a multitude of symptoms most commonly abdominal pain, skin lesions, dizziness, vomiting, constipation, indigestion, and burning sensations in the chest and stomach. They have also found 95% anemia in women, as opposed to 52% as a national average, and that most girls have delayed menses. This is in addition to birth defects, growth retardation in children, and contaminated breast milk.
..........• A small scale epidemiological survey done in 2004 by the Center for Rehabilitation Studies of the Madhya Pradesh government found that residents of communities affected by groundwater contamination have higher prevalence of diseases in the skin and the respiratory and gastrointestinal systems.
..........• Samples of breast milk from mothers in the ground water contamination affected communities were tested at the laboratory at the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and the presence of toxic and cancer causing chemicals such as Hexachlorocyclohexane [HCH], Chloroform, Dichloromethane, Chlorobenzenes and heavy metals such as Mercury, Lead and Nickel in the human breast milk samples was confirmed.

UNHELPFUL GOVERNMENT
The Supreme Court of India ordered in 2004 that the State Government of Madhya Pradesh provide clean water to those residing in 14 affected wards near the factory. Although the MP government did begin tanker service with some water, a maximum of 14% of the necessary water was being delivered everyday to the contaminated areas, with at least five bastis receiving no water at all. This amount then plummeted to almost zero when monsoon rains made the roads difficult to pass during the summer. As this example clearly shows, providing water by pipeline is the only way to reliably bring water into these communities.

Not only has the MP government declined to ensure water supplies, but police have beaten and jailed peaceful protesters from the communities asking for water, as happened in May 2005. And although the former Chief Minister of MP, Babulal Gaur, made promises to survivors that water would be provided by pipeline as he accepted their “rakhi’s” in August, he has broken that promise, too.

WATER TANKS - ONLY A TEMPORARY SOLUTION
In September 2000, the municipal corporation began supplying tanks of clean drinking water to Atal Ayub Nagar and a few other affected communities. Only through the community’s daily meetings and petitions to the Collector and local elected officials was this success achieved. However, the quantity of water is totally insufficient and 20 percent of Atal Ayub Nagar’s population still does not have access to uncontaminated drinking water. Given that UNESCO estimates domestic water needs to be 50 liters per person, there is a current shortfall of 791,500 liters of water from the tanked water supplies in fourteen of the most severely affected communities. The municipal corporation has promised Atal Ayub Nagar and a number of other affected communities that it will provide a permanent piped water supply in the near future.

KOLAR WATER
We need water from the Kolar reservoir - why should we settle for less? Of all the reservoirs of domestic water that is available in Bhopal, Kolar Reservoir is the only truly clean option as a source for contamination affected neighborhoods. Earlier, the municipal corporation offered to supply water from the Upper Lake. The Upper Lake, water from which was being offered by Bhopal's Municipal Corporation, is the repository of sewage from huge residential areas such as Koh-E-Fiza and Shamla Hills. The other source that has been offered is water from borewells in Rasla Khedi. Rasla Khedi, however, lies close to and just north of the Union Carbide factory, directly in the flow path of the contaminated groundwater. The other problem with Rasla Khedi water is that it is located next to the Patra Nullah, which is the main sewage exit channel for the entire city of Bhopal.

DISPOSAL OF WASTES
The wastes currently stored at UCIL will need to be transported to another location for destruction. The wastes cannot legally be transported as they are, neither within India nor internationally. Since these wastes are defined as hazardous under waste category 15 of the Indian Hazardous Wastes (Management and Handling) Rules, 1989: “wastes from manufacturing pf pesticides and herbicides and residues from pesticides and herbicides formulation units”, they will need to be packaged and labeled according to the guidelines for transportation of hazardous wastes published by the Central Pollution Control Board in October 2004.

- top -

5. ADMINISTRATION

Although 22 years have passed since the Bhopal gas disaster, the catastrophe not only continues; it continues to expand as health effects spread into the second and third generations. The magnitude and nature of the disaster necessitates a long-term plan of relief and rehabilitation for those affected by Carbide’s poisons. However this is something which the state government has proven itself singularly unable – or unwilling – to do.

Corruption
Corruption, rather than excellence, has become endemic, and annual reports of Comptroller and Auditor General clearly underline misappropriation of funds by the Department of Bhopal Gas Tragedy, Government of Madhya Pradesh. Official figures indicate that a total sum of well over Rs. 400 crores have been spent on provision of relief, medical, economic, social and environmental rehabilitation of the survivors of the December '84 Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal. Despite the expenditure of Rs. 260 crores on medical rehabilitation the system of health care is plagued with little or no information on line of treatment, no system of registration so much so that the government hospitals and clinics are more part of the problem than the solution. Expenditure of nearly 50 crores of rupees has only provided gainful employment to less than 200 persons. A project In the Special Industrial Area, built at a cost of Rs 8 Crores in 1990 to provide jobs to 10,000 victims, nearly half of the 152 worksheds have been used as barracks for the Rapid Action Force since 1993 rest lie vacant till this day. Likewise, expenditure of over Rs. 65 crores has not produced any appreciable improvement in the living environment of the survivors that continues to deteriorate.

Coordination Committee on Bhopal (CCB)
Although a Coordinating Committee on Bhopal was formed in response to the March to Delhi as a forum where survivors organizations could work together with the central and state governments toward meaningful relief and rehabilitation, progress has been stymied by the complete intransigence of the state government and their unwillingness to follow through on even their most basic commitments. The lack of oversight and accountability has made a farce of the CCB and the meaningful participation of both survivors and the central government; instead the state government has used the CCB as just another forum for empty promises, obstructionism and delay.

- top -