Centre bows to public pressure,wont dispose waste near Indore

The question of where to dispose the toxic waste lying at the defunct Union Carbide factory in Bhopal has come to haunt the government again.

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The question of where to dispose the toxic waste lying at the defunct Union Carbide factory in Bhopal has come to haunt the government again. Yielding to public pressure,the government has finally decided not to dump the remaining 347 tonnes of waste at a disposal facility in Pithampur near Indore. But it is as yet unclear what to do with it in that case.

The Group of Ministers examining all issues related to the 1984 gas tragedy agreed last week that clearing the waste at the treatment,storage and disposal facility in Pithampur was not entirely safe. In any case,it was not acceptable to the local population which is already up in arms against the government for dumping 40 tonnes of the waste at the facility in 2008. Locals allege that the highly toxic waste,which has been dumped underground,has contaminated the ground water.

An expert committee,that had been constituted to carry out peer review of the reports produced by three top scientific institutions on the extent of contamination caused by this toxic waste in Bhopal and nearby areas,has now given the government four possible options to dispose this hazardous waste. The committee has said that the waste can be safely disposed by burning it in cement kilns where the entire thing would be reduced to ashes. Another option is to take it to hazardous waste disposal facility run by the DRDO near Nagpur. It is said that this facility has been successfully dealing with wastes that are even more toxic than the one at Bhopal.

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The third possibility is to bury the waste at its present site at the Union Carbide premises itself. Alternatively,the government can also explore options at shipping the waste to some other country which is better equipped to handle it.

This committee has been asked to study the pros and cons of each of these possibilities and then suggest to the government the best-suited course of action within the next two months, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh told reporters.

The GoM,which is chaired by Home Minister P Chidambaram,also softened its position on the issue of building a memorial at the Union Carbide site in Bhopal. The government has been opposed to any such memorial and favours demolition of all existing structures within the premises. However,on persistent demands from representative organisations of affected families,NGOs as well as the state government,the GoM decided to re-examine the issue.

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