NGOs to protest against relief package for Bhopal victims

Call the package a "betrayal", too little and serves less than 10 percent of the victims

PTI | June 23, 2010



Terming the Group of Ministers' (GoM) relief package to the victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy as a "betrayal", seven NGOs working for them today said they will hold a protest in New Delhi tomorrow.

"The relief package has betrayed the victims of Bhopal gas tragedy and we are going to stage a protest tomorrow in New Delhi," Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan Convenor, Abdul Jabbar told reporters here.

The Rs 1,500-crore package was "too little", he said, adding the GoM on June 21 had considered just 42,208 victims eligible for the enhanced compensation.

Jabbar said the monetary assistance recommended by the Ministers' panel will go to less than 10 percent of the people exposed to the toxic gases that leaked from now defunct Union Carbide's plant here in December 1984.

"The GoM has based its decision on flawed system of damage assessment that was designed to reduce the death and injury (liabilities) caused by Union Carbide Corp," he added.

The GoM has made no recommendations regarding review of death claims or registration of toxic gas-related death claims after 1997, when such registration was arbitrarily stopped, Jabbar stated.

The panel has denied any additional compensation to 5,21,000 (91 per cent) survivors who received a paltry sum of Rs 25,000 each for life-long health complications, he said.

The GoM had failed to recommend action for extraditing the authorised representatives of Union Carbide Corpn, USA and Union Carbide Eastern, Hong Kong who had escaped trial in the gas leak case, Bhopal Gas Peedit Nirashrit Pension Bhogi Sangharsh Morcha President Balkrishna Namdeo said.

Members of other NGOs - Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangharsh Morcha, Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmcahri, Bhopal Gas Peedit Sangharsh Sahayog Samiti, Bhopal Group for Information and Action and Children Against Dow - Carbide also criticised the GoM over the relief package.

Comments

 

Other News

What really happened in ‘The Scam That Shook a Nation’?

The Scam That Shook a Nation By Prakash Patra and Rasheed Kidwai HarperCollins, 276 pages, Rs 399 The 1970s were a

Report of India’s G20 Task Force on Digital Public Infrastructure released

The final ‘Report of India’s G20 Task Force on Digital Public Infrastructure’ by ‘India’s G20 Task Force on Digital Public Infrastructure for Economic Transformation, Financial Inclusion and Development’ was released in New Delhi on Monday. The Task Force was led by the

How the Great War of Mahabharata was actually a world war

Mahabharata: A World War By Gaurang Damani Sanganak Prakashan, 317 pages, Rs 300 Gaurang Damani, a Mumbai-based el

Budget expectations, from job creation to tax reforms…

With the return of the NDA to power in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, all eyes are now on finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s full budget for the FY 2024-25. The interim budget presented in February was a typical vote-on-accounts, allowing the outgoing government to manage expenses in

How to transform rural landscapes, design 5G intelligent villages

Futuristic technologies such as 5G are already here. While urban users are reaping their benefits, these technologies also have a potential to transform rural areas. How to unleash that potential is the question. That was the focus of a workshop – “Transforming Rural Landscape:

PM Modi visits Rosatom Pavilion at VDNKh in Moscow

Prime minister Narendra Modi, accompanied by president Vladimir Putin, visited the All Russian Exhibition Centre, VDNKh, in Moscow Tuesday. The two leaders toured the Rosatom Pavilion at VDNKh. The Rosatom pavilion, inaugurated in November 2023, is one of the largest exhibitions on the histo

Visionary Talk: Amitabh Gupta, Pune Police Commissioner with Kailashnath Adhikari, MD, Governance Now


Archives

Current Issue

Opinion

Facebook Twitter Google Plus Linkedin Subscribe Newsletter

Twitter