Hundreds of residents of the area around the abandoned Union Carbide factory in Bhopal on Monday demonstrated at the Directorate of Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief and Rehabilitation demanding free medical care and rehabilitation, adequate supply of clean drinking water at minimum cost and effective drainage system in their area.
The demonstration was led by five organisations of the city that are working for the welfare of the survivors of the December 1984 gas leak from the Union Carbide pesticide factory in Bhopal.
leaders of the organisations handed over a memorandum with their four demands to the Commissioner, Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief & Rehabilitation during the three-hour long demonstration that included a photo exhibition on the problems of toxic pollution.
The organisations said that the Madhya Pradesh Government’s Public Health & Engineering Department had declared the groundwater near the Union Carbide factory to be chemically polluted as early as 1991.
In 2006, the Centre for Rehabilitation Studies, a scientific agency of the State Government had highlighted that in comparison to an unexposed population, the residents of the communities affected by contamination of ground-water had higher incidence of illnesses of the lungs, eyes, gastro-intestinal system and skin.
The organizations stated that as per the latest report of the Indian Institute of Toxicology Research, lucknow of January 2013, about 50 thousand people in 22 communities were affected by the contamination of ground-water due to hazardous waste from the Union Carbide factory.
The residents demanded free medical care at the
hospitals meant for gas victims for the illnesses caused by chronic exposure to Union Carbide’s poisons in their drinking water.
They also demanded free facilities for medical rehabilitation of the hundreds of children who were being born with disabilities as a consequence of the slow poisoning of their parents.
The organizations complained that despite several orders of the Supreme Court of India, the Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief and Rehabilitation Department of the state government had failed to complete the project of supplying clean drinking water through pipelines to every family affected by toxic contamination.
They complained that 60 families in Annu Nagar, 15 in Shankar Nagar and 5 families in Shiv Nagar did not have tap connections and hundreds of families in Jayprakash Nagar, Karim Baksh Colony, Shakti Nagar, Kainchi Chhola and Shiv Nagar were not being supplied with water in the newly connected taps.
likewise in hundreds of homes in Jayprakash Nagar, Kainchi Chhola, Preet Nagar, Shiv Nagar and Shakti Nagar, the water pressure is so low that people do not have adequate amount of water for their basic needs.