Says its officials were not involved in Bhopal plant operations
The US-based Union Carbide Corporation, now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dow Chemical International, has said the company and its officials were not part of the case in which a local Indian court today convicted its former Indian arm’s chairman Keshub Mahindra and seven others in relation to the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy, since the charges were divided long ago into a separate case.
“By requirement of the Government of India, the Bhopal plant was in detail designed, owned, operated and managed on a day-to-day basis by Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) and its employees. All the appropriate people from UCIL — officers and those who actually ran the plant on a daily basis — have appeared to face charges,” Union Carbide said in a statement on the verdict.
Furthermore, Union Carbide said the company and its officials were not subject to the jurisdiction of the Indian court since they did not have any involvement in the operation of the plant, which was owned and operated by UCIL.
In 1994, Union Carbide had sold its entire stake in UCIL to Kolkata-based MacLeod Russell (India) Ltd, which renamed the company as Eveready Industries India Ltd (Eveready Industries). In 1998, the Madhya Pradesh government took over the Bhopal site from Eveready Industries.
Meanwhile, Dow Chemical said the Bhopal gas tragedy was an eye-opener for the chemical industry worldwide on the need for improving safety measures.
“Although Dow never owned nor operated the plant, we, along with the rest of industry, have learned from this tragic event, and we have tried to do all we can to assure that similar incidents never happen again,” said the company.
The tragedy has led to formation of Responsible Care — an initiative by the global chemical industry for strengthened focus on safety standards, emergency preparedness and community awareness, says Dow Chemical International on its website on the Bhopal tragedy.
Responsible Care is a programme initiated in 1986 and is actively promoted by the International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA) and the American Chemistry Council, which actively promotes safety management and review of plants and processes of the $3000-billion plus chemical industry, which employs over 2 million people.
Dow acquired the shares of Union Carbide Corporation more than 16 years after the tragedy, and 10 years after the $470-million settlement agreement — paid by Union Carbide and UCIL — was approved by the Indian Supreme Court, noted Dow Chemical.
Union Carbide had maintained that the gas leak could only have been caused by deliberate sabotage. “Someone purposely put water in the gas storage tank, and this caused a massive chemical reaction. Process safety systems had been put in place that would have kept the water from entering into the tank by accident,” the company had said, citing the report of engineering consulting firm, Arthur D Little.
Meanwhile, even after 25 years of the mishap, Bhopal is struggling to offer relief and rehabilitation to its victims. A total of 560,000 of the 894,000 people in 36 wards of the city in 1984 were declared gas affected.
According to information on the website of the Madhya Pradesh government’s Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief and Rehabilitation Department, an average 3,583 people visit the outpatient departments of the 24 health institutions from these wards every day. In a year, over 30,000 patients are admitted to the hospitals. The government has spent over Rs 512 crore as of March 2009 in medical, economic, social and environmental rehabilitation of the affected people. Of this, Rs 366.17 crore was for medical rehabilitation.
The data also say that a total of 10,29,517 cases were registered claiming compensation, of which 455,151 were rejected by courts. A total compensation of Rs 1,548.46 crore was awarded and disbursed to the victims as compensation.
