Saturday, May 26, 2007

A question about economic polices in India in 1984, for probabale cause of the Bhopal disaster

To : Union Carbide Ltd

Dear Sirs,

I am a Indian entrepreneur based in Chennai,India
and very much intersted in economic polices
and free enterprise system.

Until 1991 India was in the vice like grip of
socialistic economic polices intiated by
Congress party from 1952. Free enterprise was
throttled and excessive goverment controls and
regulations strangeled our economy and corrupted
our system.

There was (and still is) no proper exit policy
for loss making and failed industries. And labour
laws are still rigid.

I am trying to research about such aspects.
There is very little data available about the
business profits and losses of Union Carbide India
Ltd and its Bhopal plant. Declining sales and
profits were reported. Was the plant under
utilised ? Suppose if exit and labour policy
in India were similar to USA in 1984, could the
tragedy been prevented ? Was UCIL unable to close
or sell its assets or wind up its unviable
operations in India due to legal and economic
polices followed in 1980s ?

Was the Bhopal plant making losses and unviable,
but forced to operate due to polices of government ?
Was UCIL prevented from closing or liquaditing
or selling its assets by socialistic polices of
govt of India at that time (before 1984) ?

Fertiliser policy is still a muddle and has resulted
in making many govt and private units sick.

Can you please send a detailed answer to my above
queries ?

Thanks & Regards

K.R.Athiyaman

4 comments:

arohan said...

well more thna policies people matter.
I am from indore and when i was at IIT kgp we had a lecture by Swaraj Puri then DGP of MP Police on disaster mangement in India.
Now this fellow was SP of bhopal at that time and he had earned praise for his handling of situation. he had videos and clippings and what not to buttress the point. He kept on harping how he suffered physicaly becoz of ill effects of gas and how union carbide was responsible for mess and was cheating people .
I asked him one question that blaming union carbide is all right but has any action been taken against mp pollution ocntrol or industry department people who did not do anything after closure of facotry his answer was matter is sub judice so i will not commnet.
With these kind of people at helm even best of processes would fail.

Recently this fellow was accused of wrongly showing his father as NRI to get his son engineering seat under NRI quota and was removed from DGP MP

dondu(#11168674346665545885) said...

Jyovram Sundar reacted to this post in his post against globalisation at http://jyovramsundar.blogspot.com/2008/05/blog-post_6335.html. My rejoinder to him is given below and it awaits moderation by him.

அதியமான் அப்பதிவில் கேட்டது:
//There is very little data available about the
business profits and losses of Union Carbide India
Ltd and its Bhopal plant. Declining sales and
profits were reported. Was the plant under
utilised ? Suppose if exit and labour policy
in India were similar to USA in 1984, could the
tragedy been prevented ? Was UCIL unable to close
or sell its assets or wind up its unviable
operations in India due to legal and economic
polices followed in 1980s ?

Was the Bhopal plant making losses and unviable,
but forced to operate due to polices of government ?
Was UCIL prevented from closing or liquaditing
or selling its assets by socialistic polices of
govt of India at that time (before 1984)?//

உங்கள் எதிர்வினை, இப்பதிவில்:
//மனதிற்கு மிகச் சங்கடமாயிருக்கிறது. ஒரு மிகப் பெரிய மனிதக் கூட்டத்தின் துயரைக் கூட உங்களால் இப்படித் திசை திருப்ப முடியுமெனில், என்ன சொல்ல.?//
இதில் என்ன சங்கடம் வரமுடியும்? அதியமான் கேட்ட கேள்விகளில் என்ன தவறு கண்டீர்கள்? போபால் நிகழ்ச்சி நடந்தபோது பலர் இது பற்றி எழுதினர். அத்தனை நாட்கள் பாதுகாப்பு எல்லாவற்றையும் ஆண்டுதோறும் அவதானித்து சான்றிதழ் தர நியமிக்கப்பட்ட மத்தியப் பிரதேச அதிகாரிகள் என்ன செய்து கொண்டிருந்தார்கள் என்ற கேள்வியும் எழுந்தது. யூனியன் கார்பைட் மேல் வழக்கு தொடர்ந்தது நியாயமே. அதே சமயம் மத்தியப் பிரதேச அரசும் யூனியன் கார்பைடுக்கு பக்கத்தில் குற்றவாளிக் கூண்டில் நிறுத்தப்பட வேண்டியிருக்கும். அதை செய்யவில்லையே. இது ஊழல் இல்லாது வேறு என்ன?

அதியமானின் அதே பதிவில் வந்த ஒரே பின்னூட்டத்தையும் பார்த்து விடுங்கள். போலீஸ் அதிகாரி கேள்விகளிலிருந்து எப்படி ஜகா வாங்கினார் என்பதையும் பாருங்கள்.

அன்புடன்,
டோண்டு ராகவன்

Anonymous said...

Thanks for writing this.

K.R.அதியமான் said...

A TRAGEDY OF ERRORS

Author – Anil Chawla

http://www.groundreportindia.com/2010/06/bhopal-gas-tragedy-of-errors.html

For articles circulated during the past, please visit
http://www.samarthbharat.com