BHOPAL: Forty years after the 1984 Bhopal Gas Tragedy reportedly left more than 5000 people dead in the Madhya Pradesh capital, the remaining 337 metric tonnes of toxic waste lying at the worst-ever industrial disaster’s site was shifted out of Bhopal amid tight security on Wednesday night.
Following a December 3, 2024, Madhya Pradesh High Court order, the waste is being shifted to Pithampur industrial town in western MP’s Dhar district for disposal (incineration) which may take up to nine months.
Notwithstanding the opposition by certain organisations in Dhar district’s industrial town Pithampur, a PIL filed in the High Court by the alumni of state’s largest government medical college MGM Medical College-Indore and also a voice of concern from the Indore mayor and BJP leader Pushyamitra Bhargava, 12 special containers holding the waste began their journey from the closed factory site to Pithampur in Dhar district, through a 250-km Green Corridor.
The transportation of the entire 337 MT waste (which comprises soil, pesticide residues and chemicals left from the manufacturing processes) is happening in 12 specially designed, leak-proof and fire-resistant containers, each of them being GPS-tracked for real-time monitoring.
The entire process of packing and loading the waste which was lying for last four decades at a sealed shed in the closed Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) factory, had started on Sunday under the supervision of experts and saw the involvement of over 200 workers, each of them operating in short 30-minutes shifts while following strict safety measures, including wearing the PPE kits.
The entire process, spanning from unlocking the waste, its secure and safe packing to its loading on the secured containers, has been video-filmed.
While the entire process of packing and loading of the waste on the containers happened in the sealed 200 meters radius of the factory in Bhopal, over 100 police personnel were deployed in the round the clock security there.
According to Swatantra Kumar Singh, the director of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief and Rehabilitation Directorate in Bhopal, an SP-level police officer will head the security apparatus which will escort the convoy of containers along with ambulance and fire brigade vehicles to deal with any emergency.
Besides, the police force from each district (Bhopal, Sehore, Dewas, Indore and Dhar) through which the convoy will pass, will ensure that the green corridor remains intact and secured.
Once in Pithampur of west MP’s Dhar district, the waste will be stored and disposed of (incinerated) at the state-of-the-art private treatment, storage and disposal facility (TSDF), which is the only facility in Madhya Pradesh for the disposal of chemical and hazardous waste is located in Pithampur, Dhar district.
Importantly, the TSDF facility in Pithampur is the same place, where the trial run of 10 metric tonnes UCIL waste disposal was carried out in 2015 under the Central Pollution Control Board (CBCB) supervision and the emission level was found to comply with the prescribed national standards, Singh added.
“The incineration will take time ranging between three and half months to nine months, depending on the speed (feed rate) for the waste’s incineration,” Singh told this newspaper.
The transportation of the waste from the closed UCIL factory in Bhopal to the TSDF in Pithampur is happening in compliance with MP High Court’s December 2, 2024 order, which gave four weeks to the government to safely transport the waste for disposal in Pithampur. The state government has to file the compliance report on or before the next hearing in the matter slated for January 6, 2025.
Protest to oppose disposal of Union Carbide waste
Some local activists have claimed that 10 tons of Union Carbide waste was incinerated on a trial basis in Pithampur in 2015, after which the soil, underground water and water sources in surrounding villages became polluted.
But Singh rejected the claim, stating that the decision to dispose of the waste at Pithampur was taken only after the report of the 2015 test and all the objections were examined.
There would be no reason to worry, he said.
A large number of people had on Sunday taken out a protest march in Pithampur to oppose the disposal of Union Carbide waste in the city which has a population of about 1.75 lakh.
(With inputs from PTI)