Gas survivors revive their agitation to increase compensation

| | BHOPAL
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Gas survivors revive their agitation to increase compensation

Wednesday, 14 August 2024 | Staff Reporter | BHOPAL

There has been a demand to give Rs 5 lakh each as compensation to about 5.25 lakh people who were victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy. The five organizations associated with the gas victims have also written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers in this regard.

Rachna Dhingra of Bhopal Group for Information and Action said, records of central and state government hospitals show that gas victims died at a rate 2.7 times higher due to the Covid 19 pandemic than the non-affected population in the same district.

This increased sensitivity to the pandemic is also an important evidence of the fact that most of the survivors of Bhopal have suffered permanent damage and not temporary. Therefore, they should be given an adequate amount as compensation.

Balkrishna Namdev, president of Bhopal Gas Peedit Nirashrit Pensionbhogi Sangharsh Morcha, said, "The biggest proof of injustice done to Bhopal gas victims is that according to the latest data of the Welfare Commissioner's Office, 90% of the 13 thousand 133 Bhopal survivors suffering from cancer and kidney diseases were originally placed in the temporary injury category. They were paid only Rs 25000 as compensation." Rashida B, president of Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karamchari Sangh, said, "We have written a letter to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers, urging them to follow the arguments given by the Attorney General in the Supreme Court last year regarding giving adequate compensation to Bhopal gas victims. We have reminded them that the Supreme Court has specifically directed the Government of India to make up for the shortfall in compensation." Demanded adequate compensation from the former CM too.

Nawab Khan, President of Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangharsh Morcha, said, in the letter written to the Prime Minister and the Minister, we have drawn their attention towards the letter written by the then Chief Minister of the state to the then Prime Minister on 8 December 2011. In this letter, former Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan had demanded compensation of Rs 5 lakh for every person affected by Union Carbide's poisonous gas in Bhopal.

Nausheen Khan said that it is the legal and constitutional right of Bhopal gas victims to be given adequate compensation. We have been fighting for this for the last 13 years.

It is clearly written in the documents of Union Carbide that exposure to methyl isocyanate damages the body despite immediate treatment. Ignoring this by the government is being blind to both science and justice.

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