THE tonnes of toxic waste lying at the closed Union Carbide plant in Bhopal has finally got a taker. In a surprise development, a German government agency has offered to airlift the waste from Bhopal to Germany for treatment and safe disposal.
This could bring to an end years of wrangling over treatment of waste.
The GoM on Bhopal gas disaster had recommended that the waste be incinerated at Pithampur Common Treatment Storage and Disposal Facility ( TSDF) in Dhar district of Madhya Pradesh. The Supreme Court too had ordered that the waste be disposed of there. But locals have been opposing this as green groups feel the facility is not fully equipped to handle the waste.
Now German agency, GIZ International Services, has written to the MP state pollution control board that it’s willing to airlift the waste to its incineration facility at Hamburg for treatment and disposal.
The German offer was made in February this year under the Indo- German Technical Cooperation. The minister for rural development had forwarded a copy of the offer to home minister P. Chidambaram, who heads the GoM on Bhopal on April 19. Assessing chemical and physical properties of the waste, packing it and airlifting to Hamburg would cost ` 9.75 crore.