Thirty-eight days of
walking from Bhopal to New Delhi and 18 days of sitting in dharna at
Jantar Mantar have not fatigued the people of Bhopal who have been
camping in New Delhi to seek justice 24 years after the country’s worst
industrial disaster at the Union Carbide chemicals plant ravaged their
lives on the night of December 3, 1984.
The civil society groups which have been formed out of the victims’
projected the plight of the children of Bhopal last week to the Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh. The appeal also drew attention to the absence
of any studies or measures to quantify the impact of the leak on
people’s health.
The civil society groups describe the children of Bhopal as victims of
two disasters. While the first one was the gas leak itself, the other
is the continuing contamination of the ground water near the Carbide
plant site.
“While more than 500,000 people were exposed to the poisonous gases, at
least 25,000 – many of whom are not gas victims – are being poisoned by
the contaminated groundwater,” says Rachna Dhingra of the International
Campaign for Bhopal, which is among the agitating groups.
The twin demands being made by the victims are the setting up of a
commission dedicated to the rehabilitation and fixing the liability for
the disaster on Dow Chemicals, which bought over assets of Union
Carbide.
In 1991, the Indian Council for Medical Research abruptly terminated
research on the health issues faced by children born to affected
parents after the disaster. This was despite the fact that the
research’s prinicipal investigator recommended continued monitoring on
the basis of findings that confirmed substantial deficits in physical
and mental development among children born to the victims, says Dhingra.
Recognising the spate of birth defects, and physical and mental
development disorders among second generation victims, the Supreme
Court had, in 1991, ordered that at least 100,000 children born after
the disaster should be brought under medical insurance cover.
Till date, not a single child has been covered. No schemes exist to
extend social support to families with children requiring special care.
Between 1992 and 1997, fourteen children received official assistance
for heart surgery and thirteen for diagnosis of congenital brain
anomalies, under a program called SPARC (Special Assistance to At Risk
Children). The programme was terminated in 1997 citing financial
constraints.
Of the 65 children examined in a medical camp in December 2006 by
Matthew Varghese of St. Stephens Hospital, New Delhi, 31 were found to
be suffering from brain damage. Most were residents of
contamination-affected areas and brought to the medical camp organised
by Chingari Trust.
“The government has categorically refused to extend social pension to
families with children requiring special care,” says Rashida Bee, who
is also the president of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationary
Karmachari Sangh.
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