PM asks Group of Ministers on Bhopal to meet immediately

The nine-member Group of Ministers (GoM) appointed to look into the impact of the controversial Bhopal gas tragedy verdict, as well as other aspects of the industrial disaster, has been asked to meet immediately by the Prime Minister, reports PTI.

The GoM, headed by Home Minister P Chidambaram has reportedly been asked to submit a report within 10 days.

In December 1984, a gas leak from the Union Carbide Plant in Bhopal poisoned the entire city. Bhopal lives with the impact with long-term health problems for thousands of residents.

Last Monday, India was outraged after a court in Bhopal announced its verdict and sentence in the world's worst industrial disaster. "Two years for 20,000 lives" was how the sentence was summarized by the media and activists who have spent 25 years fighting for justice. Seven Indian executives of Union Carbide were sentenced to two years in jail, they were granted bail immediately.

The real sting of the verdict lay in the refocusing of attention that Warren Anderson, the American who headed Union Carbide Corporation at the time of the tragedy, was allowed to leave India, and has never returned to face trial. Anderson flew into Bhopal on December 7, 1984, was charged with culpable homicide not amounting to murder, and was flown out in hours on the official plane of the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Arjun Singh.

Anderson's getaway - and the perceived lack of a serious attempt to have him extradited from America - have embarrassed the Congress, which was in power at the centre and in Madhya Pradesh in 1984. Senior ministers like Pranab Mukherjee have gone on record recently to suggest that India will make fresh efforts to push for Anderson to be sent here.

The GoM is meant to inspect, among others, the Anderson issue, as well as who should be made to pay for the gigantic clean-up required at the now-defunct Carbide plant, where thousands of tons of toxic waste continue to endanger Bhopal's safety. In 1999, Union Carbide was bought by Dow, which has resolutely held that it cannot be held liable for any outstanding dues for Bhopal. Activists have challenged that view in court, and the matter has still not been decided.

Source http://www.ndtv.com/news/india/pm-asks-group-of-ministers-on-bhopal-to-meet-immediately-31596.php?u=1248