"Planned Cover-Up": Bhopal Gas Tragedy Survivors On Memorial At Plant

The survivors of the Bhopal gas tragedy, however, termed the move to build a memorial on the highly contaminated factory site a "planned cover-up"

The Madhya Pradesh government has planned to dispose of 337 metric tonnes of hazardous waste from the premises of the Union Carbide factory for the construction of a memorial for the Bhopal gas tragedy victims. The survivors of the Union Carbide disaster, however, termed the move to build a memorial on the highly contaminated factory site a "planned cover-up" On the 36th anniversary of the incident last year, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had said a memorial would be built to commemorate those who lost their lives in the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy. Recently, Bhopal gas tragedy relief and rehabilitation minister Vishwas Sarang repeated that the state government has decided to go ahead with the construction of an 'employment-oriented' memorial on the abandoned Union Carbide factory premises. As a first, tenders have been issued to dispose of the hazardous waste on the factory premises. But, Rashida Bee, President of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmchari Sangh said, "Since 1990, seventeen reports, including those from the top research agencies of the central government, have confirmed the presence of pesticides, heavy metals and poisonous chemicals in high concentrations till 3 kilometres away from the abandoned factory site. Instead of excavating and removing the thousands of tonnes of hazardous waste that is the cause for the ongoing contamination of Bhopal's groundwater, the state government is planning to pour concrete over contaminated lands in the guise of a memorial to the disaster."