New Delhi: Bhopal gas victims are holding a protest in Delhi on Thursday even as a Cabinet meeting is expected to discuss the relief package recommended by the Group of Ministers (GoM) on Bhopal. Organizations working with gas victims are now trying to impress upon the Prime Minister to change the criterion on which the relief is to be distributed. They allege that less than 10 per cent of gas victims would benefit from the enhanced relief.

Satti Nath Sarangi, Activist, said, "52 per cent survivors of the tragedy were said to have temporary injuries, 42 per cent of the survivors according to the categorization had no injury at all. And only six per cent of the victims were categorized as those having permanent disabilities. Only 40 people in the whole of Bhopal were categorized as those having permanent disabilities"

Gas victims allege that the GoM has based its decision on a flawed system of damage assessment that was designed to reduce the liabilities for Union Carbide Corporation. The GoM has failed them as no recommendations have been made regarding review of death claims or registration of exposure related death claims that was arbitrarily stopped in 1997. The Madhya Pradesh government is backing the gas victims this time.

Babulal Gaur, Minister for gas relief, Madhya Pradesh, said, “This relief that has been recommended by the GoM has noting to do with majority of the gas victims. Ninety per cent of the gas victims will not get a single paisa out of this relief package"

With the increased compensation for victims proposed by the GoM, one battle seems to have been won but it seems the fight is still not over for them.

Headed by Home Minister Chidambaram, the reconstituted GoM had submitted its report to the Prime Minister on Monday after three days of discussions. The recommendations were:

Cash compensation amounting to about Rs 1500 crore out of which Rs 10 lakh were for each family of the dead, 5 lakh for completely disabled and 3 lakh for partially disabled victims.
Sources say the government wants this compensation delivered by July 15.

The other suggestion was that the Centre should file a curative petition against the 1996 judgement, which is believed to have diluted criminal charges against Union Carbide. This means they will appeal for tougher punishment in the courts.

Also -- there should be a move towards extraditing Warren Anderson. Sources say government wants to complete that process by August 15. The GoM also stating that the Centre would give Rs 350 crore to aid the Madhya Pradesh government in cleaning up the toxic waste.

Other recommendations include a probe into civil liability of Dow chemicals and Centre’s takeover of the functioning of the Bhopal Memorial hospital.

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