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Centre taking steps to remove Carbide factory toxic waste, says Chidambaram | Union Home Minister P Chidambaram,
who is heading the Group of Ministers (GoM) looking into the Bhopal Gas tragedy,
on Tuesday said the Central Government is taking all possible steps to remove
the toxic waste lying in the defunct Union Carbide factory premises at Bhopal.
"Government did not spare any attempt to dispose off the toxic waste," Chidambaram
told media here. He said the toxic waste could not be disposed off in Gujarat,
Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh due to objections raised by those of governments.
He said that the GOM is going to meet in Delhi on Friday and a decision would
be taken on a proposal of a German firm to airlift the toxic waste to that country
for safe disposal. Earlier, Chidambaram, along with Law and Justice Minister Salman
Khurshid and Minister of State (Mos) in the Prime Minister's Office V Narayanasamy
met both victims and activists. On May 11, the Supreme Court had asked the GoM
on Bhopal to decide expeditiously on the disposal of 350 tonnes of toxic waste
of the Bhopal Gas tragedy. In its reply, the Centre informed the court that the
GoM is yet to take a final decision on this issue. Earlier, activists have raised
concerns over the government's failure in disposing the toxic waste lying at the
site of the Union Carbide factory for the past 28 years. Expressing concern over
the issue, Nawab Khan of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangarsh Morcha (BGPMPSM),
revealed that nearly 20,000 metric tonnes of toxic waste is lying in the open
in Bhopal , posing a health hazard to locals. "Nearly ten thousand metric tonnes
of toxic waste is lying unattended at the site of the Union Carbide's 68 acre
plot, while ten thousand metric tonnes of toxic waste is lying near another site
very close to the factory. These toxic waste sites are responsible for the pollution
in Bhopal . Even before the tragedy, people of the region were forced to consume
water that was highly polluted due to the factory's toxic waste. Nobody is now
concerned with how to dispose off the toxic chemicals that are lying in the open
at both these sites," Khan said. In the early hours of December 3, 1984, around
40 metric tonnes of toxic methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas leaked into the atmosphere
from the plant of Union Carbide and the breeze carried the lethal gas to the surrounding
slums. The government says around 3,500 died because of the disaster. Activists,
however, calculate that 25,000 people died in the immediate aftermath and the
years that followed.
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