Health Care Plan for Bhopal Disaster Survivors-Going Nowhere

Survivors Going Nowhere Satinath Sarangi THEsole trustee of the London-based Bhopal Hospital Trust set up by the Union Carbide Corporation, Ian Percival, has recently been served notice by the Deputy Labour Commissioner, Bhopal Division, for employing child labour in hazardous construction work, an offence punishable by imprisonment up to one year and fine up to Rs 20,000, As it has become clear that the Trust and the hospital under construction arc central to Union Carbide's two-pronged strategy of evading criminal liability for the genocide in Bhopal and presenting a humane image of itself. In April 1997 and then in January 1998, the government's labour officials have found that over 200 girls and boys as young as nine years of age are brought into the city from far-flung indigenous communities and are employed in the construction of the hospital.