`Public being misled on Bhopal tragedy compensation'
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

BHOPAL, JUNE 7: Madhya Pradesh Pradesh Minister for Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief and Rehabilitation Arif Aqueel today accused Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers Ramesh Bais of misleading the public and challenged his claim that the Centre had given $ 261 crore to the state for the gas tragedy victims.

Bais had said that the state government had failed to account for Rs 6,000 crores given to it by the Centre for the relief of gas victims. The delay in submitting the accounts was due to large-scale bungling and corruption in the disbursements, Bais had alleged.

Aqueel clarified that the Central Government had sanctioned a Rs 258-crore Action Plan in 1990 for rehabilitation of the gas-affected people but had provided only Rs 193.50 crore as a 75 per cent grant. The state government pitched in with the remaining amount. Aqueel said that against the Rs 258 crore sanctioned under the Action Plan, the state government has spent Rs 274.07 crore on integrated rehabilitation of gas victims by January 2000 and the details of this expenditure were sent to the Centre regularly.

The Minister claimed that this amount has been spent on medical rehabilitation of gas victims, construction of hospitals with modern facilities, providing free medical treatment to the affected people, their socio-economic rehabilitation and environmental improvement in the gas affected areas.

While threatening a high-level inquiry into reports of misuse of Central assistance on this head, the Union Minister had said that further grants to the MP government would be stopped till it submitted the accounts.

Aqueel said the state government has urged the Centre to sanction the Rs 316.54-crore second action plan in view of the need for continuing rehabilitation works after completion of the period of the first action plan in July, 1999. He pointed out that since the Central Government had assumed the responsibility of pleading the cases of compensation to the victims before the Supreme Court, it was morally bound to fund their relief and rehabilitation works.

Aqueel said the second action plan had been forwarded to the Centre in 1996, but the state's repeated requests to sanction the money remained unheeded. The Centre was shirking its responsibility, he said.

He also denied the Union Minister's charge that the number of people registered as gas-affected is more than the total population of Bhopal at the time of tragedy in 1984. Pointing out that the claims courts were not under the state government, he added that the courts had the rejected the claims of 4.77 lakh applicants and only 5.31 lakh cases had been accepted.

As far as registration of over 10 lakh compensation claim cases -- as alleged by Bais -- was concerned, this was because the gas victims submitted the claims again after the Centre gave them one more chance for submitting the same in 1992, he explained.

Aqueel also denied the allegation that rehabilitation works have not been done on time. He clarified that six of seven sanctioned hospitals have been constructed within the stipulated time limit and only Kamla Nehru Hospital was started on January 14, 2000 because of delay in availability of latest machines.

Referring to the Union Minister's allegations about non-availability of information about medical equipment worth Rs 300 crore, Aqueel said that 157 pieces of medical equipment were donated by the US, Czechoslovakia, England and other European countries during th year 1985-86 and their record was being properly maintained.

The Minister also denied that the Centre had given the state any funds for removing toxic wastes from the Union Carbide factory site. The state government has tried to remove the remaining chemicals on its own and was getting the technical design for dedicated incinerator prepared by the Indian Institute of Chemicals Technology, Hyderabad, he said.