Bhopal case: GoM to meet daily from tomorrow

As the controversy over the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy continues to rage, the reconstituted Group of Ministers (GoM) will hold daily meetings from tomorrow and submit its report next Monday on aspects covering compensation and legal issues.

Ahead of the meeting, government said the GoM would address "concerns" on priority basis even as BJP and CPI continued to blame the then dispensations of Rajiv Gandhi and Arjun Singh for not handling the issue properly.

The nine-member GoM, headed by Home Minister P Chidambaram, will hold its first meeting tomorrow.

Sources said the GoM would thereafter meet every day till Sunday and submit its report to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday.

Seven days after the GoM was reconstituted, Singh directed it on June 14 to meet "immediately to take stock of the situation arising out of the recent court judgement to assess the options and remedies available to the government on the various issues involved and to report to the Cabinet within ten days".

Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni said the GoM will look into all aspects of the disaster in which over 15,000 people were killed and lakhs affected.

The GoM has before it various items under its purview and it will pay sufficient attention to each one of them, Soni said.

"The GoM will look at all issues, more specifically reaching out to those people who unfortunately have not got enough compensation, adequate compensation in last so many years," she told reporters.

She expressed confidence that it will "address concerns on a priority basis".

The Ministerial group will examine issues like remedial measures and make appropriate recommendations relating to the relief and rehabilitation of the victims of the tragedy and their families.

The GoM was reconstituted amid raging controversy over the quantum of punishment given to those accused in the case, with the political class in unison terming it as "too little, too late".

Besides Chidambaram, the panel includes Ghulam Nabi Azad, M Veerappa Moily, S Jaipal Reddy, Kamal Nath, Selja, M K Alagiri, Prithviraj Chavan and Jairam Ramesh.

Madhya Pradesh Minister in-charge of rehabilitation will be a permanent invitee.

The GoM was previously headed by Arjun Singh, the then Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister who is also under attack for allegedly allowing the then Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson to leave the country.