Although, group of civil society members have sought an urgent hearing of the petition in the High Court regarding disposal and incineration of the toxic waste in Pithampur, but the petition was not heard on Tuesday. The members, on December 30, had filed a plea in the High Court to halt transfer of Union Carbide waste to Pithampur near Indore, seeking immediate stay as petitioners claim that the disposal and incineration of the toxic waste in Pithampur is harmful for the residents of Pithampur as well as those in Indore, which is about 35 km from the industrial town. On the other side, around a dozen containers, carrying around 337 tonnes of toxic waste, from the premises of Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) will drive to Indore’s Pithampur area from Bhopal, for which a ‘green corridor’ has been created. All the containers will move together through a ‘green corridor’ of around 250 km between the UCIL and the dumping point in Pithampur.

 

A petition was filed in the Madhya Pradesh High Court on Monday (December 30, 2024) demanding a stay on the Government’s plans to move the toxic Union Carbide waste near commercial capital of State. Notably, State Government has begun packing and loading of 337 tonnes of toxic waste lying in the Union Carbide factory premises for 40 years. The waste is expected to be moved to Pithampur in Dhar district any day now as the Government plans to submit an affidavit in the High Court’s Jabalpur Bench on January 3. The petition has been filed by the Alumni Association of Government Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical College through its President Dr Sanjay Londhe. The two other petitioners are Dr S S Nayyar and Dr Vinita Kothari.

 

The petition has claimed that various doctors, experts and researchers have pointed out that the disposal of the waste in Pithampur might increase the cancer as well as breathing related issues for the people of Indore and Pithampur. Claiming that the incineration plant is located near Gambhir river, a source of water for the Yashwant Sagar Dam which supplies drinking water to atleast 40 per cent of Indore, the petition feared the possibilities of the dam getting polluted due to the waste disposal. “Further, it is essential to mention here that due to the ongoing disposal activities in the plant of the Ramky Enviro Engineers Limited (parent company of Pithampur Industrial Waste Management Private Limited, as claimed in the petition) situated in the Pithampur, in village Tarapur, not only the soil and water of the Tarapur village would be polluted but also of the adjacent villages, which are causing huge health issues in those villages,” the petitioners stated.

 

Talking to ‘The Hitavada’, a team of experts say that there should be a judicial committee headed by a sitting HC judge to assess the health and environmental impacts of the waste disposal in Pithampur. Notably, this year, the Madhya Pradesh High Court has directed the State Government to dispose of the toxic waste lying at the now-defunct Union Carbide factory in Bhopal, and said even 40 years after the gas disaster, the authorities are in a ‘state of inertia’ that may cause ‘another tragedy’. Describing it as a ‘sorry state of affairs’, the High Court asked the Government to remove and transport the hazardous waste from the site within four weeks, failing which it will have to face contempt proceedings.