The Hindu : Bhopal tragedy: payment sought from compensation fund balance

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Mar 23, 2004

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National

Bhopal tragedy: payment sought from compensation fund balance

By Our Staff Correspondent

BHOPAL, MARCH 22. Three organisations active among the victims of the Union Carbide gas disaster of 1984 have demanded that the balance of the compensation fund, now running to "over Rs. 1,500 crores," should be distributed immediately.

The Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmachari Sangh, the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangharsh Morcha and the Bhopal Group for Information and Action have said that their claim on the money left has been vindicated by the affidavit recently submitted before the Supreme Court by the Reserve Bank of India.

The organisations have said that they would be taking up the issue of supplying piped drinking water to the affected communities at their meeting with the State Minister for Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief and Rehabilitation, Babulal Gaur, on March 25.

Addressing presspersons on Sunday, Satinath Sarangi of the Bhopal Group for Information and Action, along with other organisations, demanded immediate payment of the balance to the claimants. They said the affidavit of the Reserve Bank of India regarding the compensation amount had been submitted on March 9, 2004 in connection with the writ petition filed by Rashida Bee, Champa Devi Shukla and 34 others on March 5, 2003. In July 2003, the Union of India had filed an affidavit claiming that only Rs. 475.76 crores were left as balance in the compensation fund.

The figures presented in the Reserve Bank of India's affidavit have been analysed by Mohan Mani, a corporate analyst at the Centre for Workers Management in Bangalore and they showed Rs. 1,505.46 crores as the balance amount till December 31, 2003, they said.

The compensation amount had been deposited with the RBI, which had created two separate accounts — a rupee account (Account A) and a dollar account (Account B). The rupee account received the initial rupee payment, and all the interest from various government securities into which the money (both rupee and dollar account) was invested. The money in the dollar account was also held as rupees at a then conversion rate of $6.55 to Rs.100 (about Rs. 15 a dollar), the activist groups said.

All payment as compensation was made from the rupee account. Whenever there was a shortfall in the rupee account, it was made good by disinvesting the securities in the dollar account. However, at the time, the Government also compensated for the difference in exchange rate, that is the rate on the date on which it was originally credited, that is Rs. 100 at $ 6.55 and the rate prevalent on the date of disinvesting the securities. The exchange rate compensation was also credited to the rupee account. According to the affidavit, the total amount in the dollar account was (641.22 + 2.15) Rs. 643.37 crores.

According to the RBI affidavit, it had further been pointed out that the total disinvestment from the dollar account was about Rs. 167.60 crores. The balance in the dollar account was (643.37 - 167.60) about Rs. 475.77 crores. The realisable value of the securities on December 31, 2003 was Rs. 578.90 crores. This included the amount in the dollar account. If all the securities were to be liquidated, the Government would, in addition to the Rs. 578.90 crores, also have to compensate for the exchange difference on the dollar account amount.

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