Widows Of Bhopal Gas Tragedy Victims To Get Additional Pension Of Rs1,000

Additional Pension For Bhopal Gas Tragedy Widows: The widows of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy victims will now be getting an additional pension of Rs.1,000 per month. The Madhya Pradesh cabinet made the announcement on Tuesday.

"This is in addition to the social security pension for the surviving widows of the Bhopal gas leak victims," said State Home Minister Narottam Mishra. He added that the finance department objected to the proposal but they took the decision nevertheless.

Madhya Pradesh Cabinet approves additional monthly pension of Rs 1,000 to widows of Bhopal gas tragedy victims, Home Minister Narottam Mishra says. "This is in addition to social security pension for surviving widows of Bhopal gas leak victims."

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) July 13, 2021

Mishra said that the additional pension was stopped during Congress rule in 2019. However, the government has now decided to resume it.

Bhopal Gas Leak Tragedy

The Bhopal Gas Tragedy occurred on the night of December 2 in 1984 when methyl isocyanate (MIC) spilt out from Union Carbide India Ltd’s (UCIL’s) pesticide factory and turned Bhopal into a gas chamber. At least 30 tonnes of the lethal gas killed more than 15,000 people and affected over 600,000 workers.

SheThePeople.TV had spoken to two survivors to gauge the impact of the tragedy on citizens on the 35th anniversary of the tragedy.

“The toxins have also seeped into the water of Bhopal and despite fighting for clean water since 1996, we did not get clean and pure water till 2011 for the rehabilitated people in bastis. The leak affected boys in our bastis, many are impotent and those who have fathered children have kids with some kind of disability. Nobody wants to marry girls from our bastis, too.” said Shehzadi, Activist, International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal said.

“Me and my brother were born after the gas disaster. I was born normal but my younger brother Adil had Cerebral Palsy from the poisonous gas our mother inhaled. The pain of seeing my brother suffer for 19 years pushed me to take up the fight for the rights of gas affected. I met similar children who had speech disability. I, therefore, learnt speech therapy and now I get immense satisfaction when some child starts to speak and joins a normal school.” Nausheen Khan, Speech Therapist with Chingari Trust told SheThePeople.TV. Read more about it here. 

Additional Pension For Bhopal Gas Tragedy Widows