Bhopal gas tragedy commission gets additional staff
By IANSMonday, December 27, 2010
BHOPAL - Almost six months after announcing the setting up of a one-man commission to inquire into the Bhopal gas tragedy, Madhya Pradesh government Monday sanctioned nine administrative posts to assist it in its probe.
In June this year, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan announced setting up of a one-man inquiry commission headed by Madhya Pradesh High Court judge S.L. Kochar to probe the Bhopal gas leak.
Chouhan said the commission will submit its report within six months.
The state government’s spokesman Dr. Narottam Mishra Monday told reporters that the posts would include one each of secretary (working or retired member of higher judicial service), stenographer (English), steno-typist Hindi, accountant, reader/assistant grade-2, evidence writer/assistant grade-3, computer operator and two peons.
Tonnes of methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas spewed out of the now shut Union Carbide pesticide plant here on the night of Dec 2-3, 1984, killing over 3,000 people instantly.
In the years that followed, people exposed to the gas kept dying. The toll is believed to be about 25,000, and the affected now account for over 5 lakh, making it the world’s worst industrial disaster.
