New Delhi, May 4 (IANS) A group of Bhopal gas tragedy survivors Tuesday filed a Right to Information (RTI) plea at the Prime Minister’s Office seeking to know whether the central government took into consideration the 1984 disaster while drafting the civil nuclear liability bill.
About 35 survivors of the tragedy, under the banner of Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmachari Sangh, Bhopal Group for Information and Action and Children against Dow Carbide, have asked the government to provide all documents concerning the civil nuclear bill that mention, discuss, concern or otherwise reference the 1984 Union Carbide disaster.

“We want to know whether the concerns of the Bhopal disaster have been considered while preparing the draft of the civil nuclear liability bill. About 25 years after the disaster we are still waiting for the prime minister to set up an empowered commission,” Zulekha Bee, a survivor of the tragedy, told IANS.

The bill proposes a liability cap of US$300 million on the supplier in case of an accident, which is considered a very low amount by the opposition parties.

“We came to know that the government is going to introduce the civil nuclear liability bill in the current session of Parliament. So we thought it is the right time to find whether any attention is being paid to things that happened in Bhopal,” said Satinath Sarangi, an activist with Bhopal Group for Information and Action.

Nawab Khan of Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangharsh Morcha, said: “The proposed compensation amount to be paid in case of a nuclear disaster is less than what was paid to the victims of the Bhopal tragedy, even as a nuclear disaster would be of a larger scale.”

The victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy have been camping at Jantar Mantar here since April 15 to protest the non-fulfilment of the government’s assurance of setting up of an empowered commission for their rehabilitation and proper medical care.

The 1984 tragedy occurred when the toxic leak from the Union Carbide Corporation’s now defunct pesticide plant in the Madhya Pradesh capital killed and maimed thousands of people on the intervening night of December 2-3.