Four decades later, Bhopal burns again and this time, it's Tarapur breathing the poison

Tarapur, Madhya Pradesh. This small, nondescript hamlet of 4,500 has a big problem.

In the haze of the mid-morning sun, crinkling your nose, you can smell it too, the moment you step foot inside the village in Dhar district. A sudden whiff of smoke mixed with sulphurous diesel floats in the air acting as a menacing reminder of a toxic past as well as probably an unseen, gathering doom.

Since the beginning of the year, the local authorities, under the direction of the Madhya Pradesh High Court in Jabalpur, have chosen to move 337 metric tonnes of toxic waste from Union Carbide’s pesticides plant in Bhopal to Re Sustainability’s Treatment Storage Disposal Facility (TDSF) in Tarapur for processing, incineration and landfill. The company, a leader in its field, is 80% owned by American private equity giant KKR and 20% by Alla Ayodhya Rami Reddy, Rajya Sabha member from YSR Congress and the second richest parliamentarian.


Forty years ago, death descended on Bhopal. In the worst industrial gas tragedy in modern history, thousands of people were killed and hundreds of thousands exposed to the highly toxic methyl isocyanate as it leaked out of the pesticide plant of Union Carbide India Ltd on December 3, 1984. Now as the toxic waste from Bhopal burns, Tarapur’s residents, predominantly industrial labourers working in the manufacturing cluster of Pithampur, have started to complain of stinging eyes, rashes, headaches, hacking coughs of black spittle and shallow breaths. Pregnant women worry for their unborn child, older men fret over the deteriorating health of their cattle.


“This will be a slow Bhopal,” warns Dr SS Nayyar, senior oncologist and chairman of the Institute of Cancer and Stem Cell Research, Indore. “Nobody is listening to science.”

Between February and March this year, 30 metric tonnes were already incinerated in three rounds. Since the beginning of May, the solitary chimney from the plant is continuously belching fumes with relentless efficiency. It will continue to do so for 72 days extinguishing the entire payload, 270 kg, per hour.

“Jab se yeh kachchra iha pe jal raha hai, sar bhi dukhta hai, Khasi ho rahi hai mere ko (Ever since the waste is getting burnt here, my head has been hurting and there is a running cough),” says Jyoti Malto (name changed), 56, who lives just 100 m from the site. The young and the old and even the cattle are suffering. “My cows are dead.”


Living next door to a large and operational industrial waste management unit is always hazardous. Parts of the residential quarters touch the walls of the facility even after the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) had red flagged the issue in 2008 and again in 2012 and 2013, observing, “the village is located within 500 m from the plant boundary,” as per official documents that ET has seen. This is in clear violation of CPCB’s guidelines on the Criteria for Hazardous Waste Landfills.

The repeated assurances of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief and Rehabilitation Department (BGTRRD) and even of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav, ruling out any contamination risk to the local ecosystem, have failed to pacify the people. Violent protests, lawsuits and blame games have polarised the narrative between the state and its subjects.

“We have taken help from the Dhar collectorate, Indore collectorate, even panchayats to clear the air and confusion. We are complying with all the norms of state and central pollution control boards,” says Shriniwas Dwivedi, regional officer, MP Pollution Control Board (MPPCB).

Yet, fear and anguish are spreading beyond Tarapur for this has been a saga of broken promises, policy and judicial U-turns, verbal jousting, public consternation and half-measures.

TRIAL RUNS
This goes back to trial runs to burn industrial waste at the Pithampur plant. Since 2010, seven trial runs have taken place but only two – a decade apart from each other – have used the waste from Union Carbide. The results in many were found wanting by various state and central agencies, claim activists and government records. Re Sustainability denies all allegations to ET.


The first four runs of incineration at Pithampur happened between 2010 and 2012 under the orders of CPCB using non-hazardous industrial waste from different industries in the state. Even then, the emission of dioxins and furans were found to be above permissible limits, forcing the state’s pollution control agency, MPPCB, to issue an order to close the incinerator and stop accepting any further waste from any industry. Re Sustainability (then called Ramky Enviro Engineers) were given 15 days to respond.

A year later, the central government approached the Supreme Court and received a green signal to conduct a trial run of 10 metric tonnes using hazardous waste from Hindustan Insecticides Limited (HIL), Kochi. The CPCB report that followed shows particulate matter exceeded in one of the three samples, but the average observed value was “well within prescribed limits”.

The success facilitated the sixth round of trials in 2015. The trials were, for the first time, conducted on Union Carbide waste. The CPCB report from August 2015 said emission of nickel was above permissible limits. It also said that the PM 2.5 test to measure particulate matter of 2.5 microns and below was not conducted at all. These tiny particles can enter the lungs and bloodstream of humans. Oddly enough, the MP government, which had been opposing the exercise, did a U-turn under the then chief minister, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, between 2013-15 and supported the incineration, raising the hackles of activists. Incidentally, in 2012, the then MP Chief Minister Shri Babulal Gaur and environment minister Shri Jayant Malaiya had publicly claimed incineration would not take place at Pithampur.

Says Masood Mallick, MD & CEO, Re Sustainabilty: “Pithampur Industrial Waste Management Private Limited [PIWMPL, a subsidiary of Re Sustainability] has taken up this critical assignment, being the authorised and competent facility in Madhya Pradesh equipped to safely manage such hazardous material.” The company, he adds, has implemented several steps like enhanced filtration, improved absorption and quenching, scrubber-based treatments and mechanised waste handling, to safeguard the environment.

Over 1 crore residents live in a 30 km radius of windborne contaminants from Pithampur, including Indore and Dr Ambedkar Nagar Mhow, a military cantonment town that houses three premier training institutions of the Indian Army.

Citizens, human rights groups and environmental NGOs that had chased Dow Chemicals, which acquired Union Carbide Company, to provide a better compensation to the people affected by the Bhopal gas tragedy, refuse to accept that after the incineration of the waste, the ashes would be disposed of in an environmentally safe manner in Pithampur. In Bhopal, poisonous waste has been leaching into the ground for years and has not been fully dealt with even now.

Mallick tries to reassure: “Over the years, PIWMPL has continuously worked to enhance the incineration facility, with public disclosure mechanisms in place.”

While agreeing that the village of Tarapur has grown in size over the last decade, he says, “All landfill cells in the PIWMPL facility have been developed in strict accordance with CPCB guidelines, and the facility’s operations continue to adhere fully to applicable environmental regulations.”

Public scepticism persists. Since 2004, at least three writ petitions and numerous intervention applications were filed in the MP High Court to stop the incineration of the waste. In June, the Supreme Court refused to stay the disposal of the Union Carbide plant waste in Pithampur.

The current turn of events is “nothing short of a cruel irony”, says Dev Vasudevan, a Mhow resident and petitioner. “Four decades after Union Carbide, once again a US corporation (KKR) is in the Bhopal spotlight.” Incidentally, KKR has launched a process to sell Re Sustainability and has mandated investment banks JP Morgan and Barclays for it.

CLEAR & PRESENT DANGER
There is a reason people are worried.

As recently as December 2024, MPPCB gave the Tarapur facility a notice for violating the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act after it found the landfill has been contaminating the ground water of nearby villages.

“We should stop the poison from entering people once again,” says Rachna Dhingra, coordinator of the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal. “This is nothing but greenwashing with zero transparency.”


In its defence, the company told ET they had responded “comprehensively to the notice,” following which the authorities conducted an on-site inspection and confirmed that the facility is in compliance, ensuring that there is no possibility of surface runoff or any other form of discharge. “We categorically affirm that there is no seepage originating from or linked to the TSDF,” says Mallick.

Following the trial run earlier this year, activists like Dhingra have alleged that the exercise had taken place without installation of real-time mercury analysers. She contacted Professor Asif Qureshi of the department of civil engineering and department of climate change at IIT-Hyderabad for an “independent review”.

Qureshi’s investigation found that 5-20 kg of metallic mercury had leaked after the first tranche of trials, even though the state officials ruled out any worrying spikes. This, Dhingra claims, was not informed to the court.

“In the absence of reporting laboratory procedures and method validation results, and the absence of precise flow sheet of operations, and the absence of a mass balance of mercury, the report does not provide confidence,” wrote Qureshi as a conclusion of his findings.

Mallick says the allegations of significant mercury release during the trial run are unfounded and incorrect. “Mercury concentrations in the UCIL waste can vary from sample to sample or bag to bag,” he says. “However, during regular operations, all incoming waste is mechanically blended to minimise chemical spikes and ensure uniformity.”

Over the years, soil samples have shown evidence of persistent organic contaminants banned under the 2021 Stockholm Convention – an international treaty to protect human health and environment from chemicals. Apart from other contaminants, the UCIL waste contains heavy metals such as mercury, chromium and lead, a chemical cocktail that killed over 5,600 people as per some estimates in 1984, many in one night while over 20,000 perished over the years from related conditions. These ‘forever chemicals’ retain their toxic properties.


According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), mercury is a neurotoxin that damages the nervous system, impacts foetuses and gets stored in fat. A gram of mercury is enough to contaminate a 20-acre lake and make its fish unfit for human consumption forever.

“At one extreme, some pesticide compounds may have biodegraded to the point where they no longer need incineration, in which case we're burning a lot of diesel and making people afraid for no good reason,” says Fiona Macleod, Professor of Process Safety, School of Chemicals, Materials and Biological Engineering at the University of Sheffield, UK who has been examining the Bhopal disaster since it happened. “At the other extreme, there may be heavy metals in the excavated soil which will not be destroyed by heat but may instead be dispersed by the incineration process.”

POISONOUS LEGACY
Macleod, says the nub of the issue is that till date, no proper, rigorous study has been commissioned to determine how badly, widely or to what depth, the land where the Union Carbide plant stood has been contaminated.

The logic is simple – the pesticides made by UC were used in small quantities to kill insects. Large amounts of residues naturally are far more fatal to humans.

States like Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra had all refused to treat the Union Carbide waste in the past. Even Germany faced protests when an organisation volunteered to ship it for incineration in 2012. In 2010, when the late Pushpa Mittra Bhargava, founder of the Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology, Hyderabad and member of the task force set up by the MP High Court to find a remedy, sought the opinion of Thermax, a leading engineering and waste management company, MS Unnikrishnan, who was MD & CEO, responded by saying that no incinerator operational then within India “had that level of sophistication and safety systems in-built to tackle the waste”.


Unnikrishnan, who is now CEO of the IIT Bombay-Monash Research Academy, tells ET that even though technologies have improved dramatically in recent years, the challenge remains in figuring out the “exact chemical contents of the waste”. “Without a detailed feasibility study, designing an incinerator will be tough.”

Re Sustainability disagrees. “We are also not aware if Thermax has any experience managing similar wastes,” says Mallick. “The incinerator at Pithampur is well-equipped with the necessary infrastructure to handle complex pesticide and UCIL waste.”

Nobody till date knows how much of the total waste from Bhopal is still on ground and why the state government zeroed in on 337 metric tonnes of solid waste for disposal, leaving aside the rest. 1.5 million cubic meters of soil in Bhopal remains contaminated loaded with toxic pesticides, according to the estimates of DP Mishra, former Director General, Indian Chemical Council. The 18 solar evaporation ponds where hazardous waste was dumped since the mid-60s still retain chemical remnants.

“I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that at least 99% of the remediation job is still to be addressed,” Macleod says.

THE BURNING QUESTION
Burning waste using diesel would lead to three times ash, which is again toxic waste, which will have to be buried in landfills, risking groundwater leaching, contamination and long-term environmental damage. “Burning the waste will release harmful dioxins, furan, carbon monoxide, etc,” said Nayyar, also an intervener in the MP High Court. He explains the long-term impact in and around the capital city of Madhya Pradesh since the 1984 incident. “In 2024, an ICMR study found out that the incidence of cancer among males is 102% higher than the national average. For females, the figure is 96% higher.”

According to a study published in 2023 by the British Medical Journal Open, 39 years after the gas explosion, males who were exposed to the leak while they were still in the womb were more likely to have a disability that affected their employment and also, at a 27-fold higher risk of cancer. The team observed that women who lived within 100 km of Bhopal were less likely to give birth to males.

Macleod argues the authorities have thus far failed to address why after 40 years of “doing nothing” there is a rush to incinerate without first analysing what is actually to be burnt and if incineration is the right solution whether the Pithampur incinerator is suitable for the job.

“Unless we analyse the ash, we will not know the extent to which the toxic pollutants have subsided,” said Mishra. “Deisel will add pollutants like sulphur dioxide particulate matter (2.5 and PM10). Burning the waste will release harmful dioxins, furans carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide as well as nitrogen oxides. Even though the plant is monitoring emissions, data for some items dioxin and Furans are not being continuously monitored” he adds.

In 2015, around 80,000 litres of diesel were used to incinerate 10 MT of waste.

GROUND ZERO
Amid the commotion, the households of Tarapur continue to live dangerously. Massive protests in January led to lathi charge, use of tear gas by the police and even attempts of self-immolation. Since then, there has been a severe crackdown by the district magistrate. “There is a fear factor all around,” says Hemant Hirole, president, Pithampur Bachao Samiti, an organisation that is protesting the incineration in Pithampur. “Several FIRs against village protesters were wrongfully filed in January.”

The villagers worry more about the prospects of slow poisoning with multi-generational impact than retribution. “Har aadmi ko dekho yahaan khujaliyo ka bimariya hain (Every second person is suffering from itching),” says Hemu Rathod of Tarapur. He says the vegetables that grow in their small patch have no taste. The output of mangoes has fallen drastically.

A community health centre (CHC) in Pithampur Sector II says the state administration has asked the staff to maintain granular details of reported cases, especially during the trials. However, this has stopped since April end, say the clinic staff. Coincidentally, cases of fever, cough and cold and skin diseases were the top symptoms among patients after pregnancy.


“Past records show clear discrepancies,” says Aruna Rodriguez, an Indore resident. “Both the monitoring agencies being consulted MPPCB and CPCB are government agencies. This is a serious conflict of interest. We should be having an independent evaluation by international experts.”


What’s the alternative then? Most of the activists say: an immediate pause on incineration and a detailed analysis of the packaged material (toxic waste). “Since 2013, a roadmap made by the Centre for Science & Environment (CSE), a public interest research organization, has been in place. It includes steps for remediation and a detailed scientific assessment of ground and water pollution at the factory site and evaporation ponds as well as all water sources at increasing distances from the site,” says Macleod. The government’s promises to deliver free, clean piped water and free health care (including the cost of medicines) to the affected population also needs to be acted upon.

A few weeks back, a group of environmental activists marched to Dow’s European offices in Switzerland carrying soil samples from Bhopal, still demanding Dow pay up. Quoting 15th century Swiss physician Paracelsus, they say, ‘The dose maketh the poison.’