Bhopal Gas Tragedy: Report on trial disposal of Carbide waste ready
The central pollution control board (CPCB) has readied its report on a trial disposal of the Union Carbide toxic waste on the basis of which the Supreme Court will lay down the procedure of disposing the entire waste, board officials said on Wednesday.
The central pollution control board (CPCB) has readied its report on a trial disposal of the Union Carbide toxic waste on the basis of which the Supreme Court will lay down the procedure of disposing the entire waste, board officials said on Wednesday.
About 340 tonnes of toxic waste is lying at the union carbide plant since years and its disposal had become a cause of concern for the authorities. In April 2014, the Supreme Court had ordered a trial disposal of 10 tonnes of the waste and asked the board to submit the report keeping all parameters in the mind.
Following the court order, the board carried out the waste disposal on August 14 at the treatment storage disposal facility (TDSF) in Pithampur, about 220 kilometres from the state capital. According to officials, the entire process took five days.
The board would now submit its report to the union ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) shortly which in turn would file it before the Supreme Court which is monitoring the waste disposal,
A CPCB official said three agencies had monitored and videographed the process as it involved sensitive parameters and hence the compiling of the report took time.
The entire trial run, right from the shifting of the waste from the plant site to the TDSF , was done clandestinely by the state government to avoid resistance from gas activists and locals at Pithampur who had been opposing the shifting and incineration of the waste.
Through the years
In 2004, Alok Pratap Singh of Zahreeli Gas Kand Sangharsh Morcha filed a PIL in the high court demanding disposal of the toxic waste from the plant site as it was allegedly responsible for air and water pollution
HC ordered disposal of the waste at Ankaleshwar in Gujarat
The Gujarat government opposed it and subsequently the Supreme Court ordered its disposal at a facility near Nagpur in Maharashtra
After NGOs’s opposition to the same, a firm from Germany offered to incinerate the waste
In August 2012, the Supreme Court asked the state and the union governments to jointly dispose of the waste within six months
10 tonnes of waste was moved from the plant in Bhopal to Pithampur in July
The process of incineration began on August 14