It is unclear why the Union government is dragging its feet on the matter. As the Express has just reported, a New York court gave an unprecedented ruling that the Union Carbide can be ordered to clean up its abandoned factory and its contaminated environs, provided the Government of India or the Madhya Pradesh — which owns the land on which the factory is situated — urges the court to order such a relief. The state government has had no hesitation in giving its assent to such a step, but New Delhi, for some reason, is displaying a remarkable apathy on the issue, with the law ministry claiming it is a matter for the environment ministry to settle, and the environment ministry appearing totally clueless on the matter. In the process, time is running out on an opportunity — the court had set a deadline of June 30 — to get Union Carbide to clean up the toxic trap that is the Bhopal factory today. Neither the Madhya Pradesh government, nor indeed the Government of India, is in any position to effect such a massive clean up given the technology and funds entailed. If the Union government’s prevarication is caused by the perception that such a go-head could jeopardise any claims arising out of the gas leak, then it seems to be a case of misplaced anxiety. As a battery of Indian legal luminaries have opined, the contamination in and around the Union Carbide factory is an issue quite distinct from that of compensation for the victims of the gas leak and the court sees it as such. Today, the gargantuan shell of the former factory has become a reminder, not just of the tragic gas leak of 1984, but of the threat it continues to pose for local residents. Its toxins have permeated local aquifers and the land on which it is situated has been rendered contaminated by enormous amounts of toxic wastes — like bags of hexachlorocyclohexane that are still strewn around. Removing this serious health hazard should have been an imperative for the authorities but little was done about it through all these years of activism. In fact, Madhya Pradesh’s principal secretary — in a letter to the Union government urging it to move on the matter — has underlined that it is in “public interest that the toxic waste on the site is removed and disposed at the earliest”. It is now only to be hoped that the Union law minister heeds this call and seizes the historic opportunity to undo some of the damage that the tragic event of 20 years ago perpetrated on the hapless citizens of Bhopal.
