Report with PM; Cabinet decides on Friday.
A Group of Ministers (GoM) set up to re-examine the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy has recommended the central government give additional compensation worth Rs 1,500 crore to the victims, petition the Supreme Court for a review of its judgment that diluted charges against the perpetrators and overhaul the Public Insurance Liability Act of 1991 to deal better with such happenings.
Sources said the panel has also recommended that the government pursue extradition of Warren Anderson, the former chairman of Union Carbide Corporation, from the US. It was from a Union Carbide plant that toxic gas had leaked onto the streets of Bhopal more than 25 years ago, killing an estimated 25,000 people in the world's worst industrial disaster.
The Union Cabinet will meet on Friday to decide on the recommendations, Home Minister P Chidambaram told reporters before giving the report to the Prime Minister this evening.
The GoM was set up after a court in Bhopal sentenced seven former employees of Union Carbide to two years in jail. The sentence, perceived as lenient by many, had led to widespread public outrage.
The GoM has also recommended another Rs 350 crore for cleaning the toxic factory site and Rs 170 crore for related environmental purposes. The government of Madhya Pradesh will be asked to bear 25 per cent of this Rs 170 crore from its own exchequer. A unit of the Indian Council of Medical Research will be set up at Bhopal to ensure better health service facilities to the victims; Rs 200 crore will be invested on this.
As the legal appeals and court processes would be time-consuming, the GoM decided to act swiftly on compensation and offer more money to the victims without much delay. At the same time, the GoM, according to sources, will ask the government to proceed with the clean-up operations at the Union Carbide factory. The expenses for this, top sources in the government said, will be borne by the Centre. For, Dow Chemicals, the company that later bought Union Carbide, has refused to give any money on this account.
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It has also been decided not to dismantle the GoM. It will continue to oversee the Bhopal affair. "The GoM meeting is not over. We will continue to address issues as and when they come up. For immediate requirements, we have made a report," Chidambaram said.
Road transport and highways minister Kamal Nath, a GoM member, said the final cabinet decisions would be implemented by December 2012.
According to sources, the GoM has recommended three categories of compensation: Rs 10 lakh for kin of the dead and Rs 5 lakh and Rs 3 lakh for handicapped people, depending on the levels of their injury. This compensation will be totally funded by the Centre.
The state government will be asked to oversee the sanitisation of the abandoned Carbide plant. The GoM has also decided to bury a large part of the toxic wastes from the Carbide plant in that ground itself. The remaining bit will be buried at the Pithampur industrial area, close to Indore.
The Centre had initially approached the Gujarat government to handle the Carbide site wastes, as it has facilities to deal with chemical wastes. However, the state government refused.
While the government is likely to decide to go ahead with the cleaning operations, it will proceed with the legal cases to try to make Dow Chemicals, which bought Carbide in 2001, financially liable for the sanitisation operations.