The Centre is contemplating to demolish the building of the now defunct Union Carbide factory in Bhopal because of mercury contamination, Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said yesterday.
The Centre is contemplating to demolish the building of the now defunct Union Carbide factory in Bhopal because of mercury contamination, Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said yesterday. "Though the State government and NGOs wants to preserve a part (of the factory) from where the gas leaked as a monument, the Centre and the Group of Ministers (GoMs) on the Bhopal gas tragedy want to raze the building of the Union Carbide Factory owing to mercury contamination," he said. However, a final decision in this regard will be taken only in July-August after the state government and NGOs present their case before the Centre, he added.
Ramesh said that the state government and the NGOs were free to put their point across and make a presentation against flattening of the Union Carbide factory's building. Over 15,000 people were killed and lakhs maimed after methyl isocyanate gas leaked out from the Union Carbide factory in December 1984. Ramesh, said in Bhopal that Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) was interested in taking up clearing of the 350 tonnes of toxic waste from the Union Carbide Factory premises.
"The DRDO has shown interest to clear 350 tonnes of waste lying in the Union Carbide Factory, with (ensuring) no harm to the environment," Ramesh told reporters after chairing the meeting of Oversight Committee on Bhopal Environmental Remediation. "I am going to write a letter to the Defence Minister A K Antony tomorrow," he said, adding that he would also meetu00a0 Antony in this regard. However, Ramesh said, even the DRDO would need two years to dispose of the waste from the Carbide factory, the site of the catastrophic gas leak of 1984.
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