The Supreme Court has requested details on the safety measures implemented for the disposal of hazardous waste from the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy. The waste is scheduled for disposal in the Pithampur area of Madhya Pradesh’s Dhar district. This directive came from a bench comprising Justices B R Gavai and Augustine George Masih, following concerns about the potential risk to local residents.
The plea for urgent listing, which was presented to the court by the petitioner’s counsel, highlighted the proximity of villages within a one-kilometer radius of the disposal site, raising alarms over the safety and health of the local population. The Madhya Pradesh High Court had previously authorized the state on February 18 to commence a trial run of waste disposal starting February 27, prompting the petitioner to seek immediate Supreme Court intervention.
In response, the Supreme Court has scheduled a hearing for February 27, at which it intends to assess the validity of the apprehensions raised. “We are not going to stop it unless the apprehension is found to be well-founded,” the bench stated, emphasizing the need for a thorough review of the petition to determine if the concerns had merit.
The disposal process involves about 377 tonnes of waste from the now-defunct Union Carbide factory, which will be moved 250 km from Bhopal to a treatment facility in Pithampur. The toxicity of the waste, stemming from the catastrophic leak of methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas in 1984, resulted in thousands of deaths and significant long-term health impacts, marking it as one of the gravest industrial disasters globally.
This recent development follows a series of court orders, including a directive from the Madhya Pradesh High Court in December 2024, which criticized the slow pace of waste removal from the Union Carbide site and threatened contempt proceedings if the waste was not relocated promptly. The initial transfer of the waste began on January 1, with strict safety measures in place.
