Government row over Bhopal waste

April 26, 2012: Some politicians have urged the federal government to accept a German firm’s offer to dispose of toxic waste from Bhopal. Indian media yesterday reported Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh asking his home ministry counterpart to accept an offer from GIZ (a German organisation for international co-operation), which undertakes waste management among other tasks.
For the past 27 years, the Indian government has tried ways to dispose of some 350 tonnes of waste at the site of a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal which was the scene of one of the world’s worst industrial accidents. The plant leaked methyl isocyanate, killing 5,295 people immediately and more than 25,000 later.
On April 4, the federal government got a supreme court order to incinerate the waste at Pithampur, an industrial town near Indore, Madhya Pradesh’s commercial capital. But the local government now plans to seek supreme court permission to transport the waste to Germany. Residents of Pithampur have protested against the federal plan, saying their town lacks adequate facilities to dispose of such toxic matter and that the incineration would adversely affect the health of hundreds of thousands.