Panel to supervise remedial steps at Bhopal gas disaster site
The government today set up a committee headed by environment minister Jairam Ramesh to supervise the remedial steps being taken by Madhya Pradesh government at the disaster site.
The government today set up an oversight committee headed by environment minister Jairam Ramesh to supervise the remedial steps being taken by Madhya Pradesh government at the Bhopal gas disaster site.The panel is the outcome of one of the several recommendations of the Group of Ministers on Bhopal gas leak disaster, constituted in May to examine issues related to the gas leak including remediation steps and relief and rehabilitation of the victims and their families.The 16-member panel's mandate is to provide oversight and support to the state government in taking the necessary remedial actions such as waste disposal, remediation and decontamination, according to a release from the environmentministry which today notified its formation.
The Centre would spend around Rs 310 crore for environmental remediation in and around the disaster site where the hazardous material continues to pollute ground water an soil on a massive scale more than 25 years after the industrial mishap.Chaired by Ramesh and co-chaired by Babulal Gaur, minister-in-charge of department of Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief and Rehabilitation of Madhya Pradesh, the panel has representatives from finance, chemicals and petrochemicals, and science and technology ministries.Besides, officials from National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), National Geophysi cal Research Institute (NGRI) and Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) are also part of the panel.The GoM was formed following public outrage against a court's verdict convicting former Union Carbide chairman Keshub Mahindra and seven others in one of the world's worst industrial disaster, the gas leak at the Union Carbide plant in 1984 that left at least 20,000 people dead and injured many more.