It’s close to sundown and a family is gathering in the courtyard of their home near the ancient Bokneshwar Mahadev temple in Tarpura village, Pithampur town of Madhya Pradesh’s Dhar district. The Puri family members have been priests at the temple for generations. There’s a discussion about the town’s tense atmosphere, and the matriarch asks if she and her family of at least 15 will die. Their home is opposite an industrial waste-treatment plant.
On January 3, the usually peaceful town of Pithampur, about 35 km from Madhya Pradesh’s financial capital Indore, erupted in protest. People across genders and ages were out on the streets of what is one of the largest industrial areas in the State. As the day progressed, two people attempted self-immolation. The next day, an angry group of protesters pelted stones and tried to march to the waste-treatment plant.
It is now a few days past the protests and life in the densely-populated town has resumed its regular pace, with markets open, roads full of traffic and trucks honking. However, in Tarpura village, located on a pahadi (hill) on PIthampur’s outskirts, the number of security personnel grows larger closer to the plant.
The people’s anger is directed towards the Madhya Pradesh government’s plan to dispose 358 tonnes of toxic chemical waste at the Pithampur Industrial Waste Management Private Limited, owned by the Ramky Group. The waste was generated from a disaster 40 years ago.
Vijay Puri, 24, (left), and other members of the Puri family at their house, which is opposite to the Ramky Group’s Pithampur Industrial Waste Management plant where the toxic waste has been kept.
| Photo Credit:
A.M.FARUQUI
In the early winter of 1984, on the intervening night of December 2 and 3, M.P.’s capital Bhopal woke up to a nightmare. The toxic gas, methyl isocyanate (MIC), leaked from the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) factory, killing thousands. The health impact is still felt among those who live here. The waste had been lying at the now-abandoned factory in Bhopal for four decades.
While small protests in the industrial town, as well as in Indore, had been going on since the shifting of waste gained steam around the end of December 2024, the anxiety grew, bursting into protests against the disposal there. On the morning of January 2, 12 trucks carried spill-and-leak-free containers loaded with the waste to the facility in Pithampur.
While the Central Government estimates, based on a report by the Officer of the Welfare Commissioner, Bhopal Gas Victims, say that 5,479 people have died due to the disaster as of 2022, several non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and activists have claimed that the numbers surpass 15,000. Government estimates also show that while thousands suffered physical disabilities in the aftermath of the accident, it has also had health implications on more than 5 lakh people over the decades.
The worry and the trauma that Bhopal has been living with has travelled to Pithampur. Fear, fuelled by fake news has made people anxious about another disaster. The refrain is: we will not let Bhopal’s waste be burnt in Pithampur.
Waste on the way
From their terrace, Vijay Puri, 24, the matriarch’s grandson, and other family members point at the plant and to the police barricades outside. He reiterates his grandmother’s concern: “Why has the government brought Bhopal’s waste here?” He and his family draw attention to a statement by Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav after the waste reached the town on January 2. “He claimed that the toxicity of the waste lasts 25 years, so now it is not harmful. If it is not harmful, why can’t they just burn it in Bhopal? What was the need to bring it here with so much security and theatrics?” Vijay asks.
The waste was packed and loaded into the containers by over 100 specially-trained workers who did 30-45 minute shifts to avoid long exposures. On the night of January 1, the trucks left the Union Carbide premises with a heavy security cavalcade via a 250-km green traffic corridor.
The government’s actions have come after the Madhya Pradesh High Court, hearing a 20-year-old case seeking the disposal of the waste, pulled up the State authorities in a December 3, 2024, order. It directed them to take action within four weeks, to remove and dispose of the waste that had been in the factory.
Due to the public outcry following the movement of the waste, the State Government filed an affidavit before the HC, seeking six weeks’ time to instil confidence in people. On January 6, the court gave the government the time, also directing the media not to publish “any fake news”.
Questions and answers
People in Tarpura and nearby villages have many questions, including whether the waste disposal will be done safely. Swatantra Kumar Singh, director of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy Relief and Rehabilitation Department, says it will be incinerated at 1,200 degrees Celsius. “A batch of 90 kg will be incinerated, after which the toxicity feedback rate will be examined. If it is within limits, the waste will be incinerated in batches of 270 kg and will take about three months. Otherwise the process will be slowed, and may take up to nine months,” he says.
It will be supervised by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Madhya Pradesh Pollution Control Board (MPPCB). The smoke, Swatantra says, will be released into the air through a four-layer filtration system and the residue, expected to be around 900 tonnes, will be fully covered with a two-layer membrane and buried under a landfill site.
The government has also highlighted a Supreme Court-directed trial in 2015 in which 10 tonnes of the same waste from the UCIL factory was incinerated at the treatment plant. It was after this trial and submission of a success report that the SC had first issued directions for the incineration of the remaining waste at Pithampur.
The waste has been loaded into spill-and leak-free containers by 100 specially trained workers who did 30-45 minute shifts to avoid long exposures.
| Photo Credit:
A.M.FARUQUI
The people in Pithampur are not convinced. “What will happen if even 10% of what happened in Bhopal happens here? Our children will die in 10-15 years,” says Lakshmi Sahu, 28, who runs a tea shop opposite the Pithampur bus stand, the epicentre of the January 3 protests. Residents of Sagar district, Lakshmi and her husband, who is a vegetable vendor, moved to Pithampur about eight years ago for work and are now raising their two children here. “It’s not easy for us to keep our shops shut for two days but we did that during the protests to save our children’s future,” she says, as her five-year-old daughter plays.
Vijay shows an old well near the Bokneshwar Mahadev temple, now covered with a grill. Several people in the village say that the well was a major source of water for them before the authorities covered it after the 2015 trial disposal of the 10-tonne UCIL waste. “During the monsoon, when the water pours onto the landfill sites, a foul smell also spreads in the locality,” Vijay says.
Rumours are rife
The government and the police blame misinformation, and say that people are being paranoid. Dhar Superintendent of Police Manoj Kumar Singh says that the situation in the area is now peaceful and that various departments, including the police, are working to dispel misinformation. Seven cases have been filed in connection with the protests, and the SP says they are checking surveillance footage to identify miscreants.
The stone-pelting at the treatment facility on January 4 morning was also a result of a rumour that spread in the area, an officer says. A social media message claimed that one of the trucks parked within its premises had disappeared, disposal of waste had begun, and some workers inside the plant had fainted.
The police have arrested three men in connection with the rumour and the district authorities have issued several messages regarding the waste disposal process. Dhar Additional SP Indrajeet Bakalwar says that the public were pacified only after community representatives and activists were taken inside the factory to see that all 12 trucks were sealed.
In Tarpura village, Ram Prasad, 38, a vegetable vendor says that ever since the waste arrived there, several people from the village would climb onto their rooftops and count the trucks. Social media is rife with ‘content creation’. An Instagram video shows a girl telling her mother to pack an oxygen cylinder before going to Pithampur because “there will be no oxygen there due to the burning of toxic waste”.
The fear around the disposal of the waste has caused panic among migrant workers too. Inder Sharma, a labour contractor from Bihar’s Khagaria district, says that nearly 70-80 workers he had brought have left for their hometowns.
Decades-long mistrust
In 2008, 40 kg of Union Carbide’s toxic waste was transported to Pithampur in the dead of night, during a curfew in Indore. This had caused protests at the time. Since the early 2010s, the people of Pithampur have been opposing the plans to burn the waste in their town, three years after the Gujarat government refused to allow incineration at a facility in Ankleshwar. The current task of disposal has been handed to the Ramky Group’s plant for ₹126 crore.
Behind the anger and fear of Bhopal’s waste is also the scepticism of the “Ramky factory” as it is known locally. Apart from Tarpura, various villages or localities — such as Dhannad, Chirakhan, Akoliya, Bardari, and Silotiya — located around the plant, claim they have been adversely impacted by it. Residents allege that the residue of the industrial waste at landfill sites and two drains from the factory have contaminated local water bodies and the groundwater.
Rajesh Bhariya, 36, a farmer in Tarpura, says that even borewells are not used to water the crops in the village and that farmers rely only on dew for moisture in the winter crops. “The groundwater is red, almost like petrol. If you use it in crops, your current crop will go bad and it will also affect the yield of the next crop,” he says.
Lakshmi Sahu at her tea shop in Pithampur. Eight years ago, her family moved from the district of Sagar to Pithampur for better opportunities.
| Photo Credit:
A.M.FARUQUI
He points to the chickpea field where his mother, Sarju Bai, 70, is working: “You can see the size of the plants. They are much smaller than usual, because of the lack of water,” he says.
His mother intervenes to talk about a well in the valley behind her fields. “We used to drink water from it until six to eight years ago. Now look at its condition,” she says. The well has a layer of foam on its surface. A drain from the plant flows less than 5 m away. Some 100 m further into the valley, a larger drain flows.
In Chirakhan village, which falls under Indore district, a group of men have gathered under a tree at the panchayat office. Here, they don’t have regular drinking water, the supply of which goes to other villages nearby. Maniram Patel, 72, says, “You will see black spots or some kind of infection on the skin of most people in the village. Sometimes when we are forced to drink water from borewells, we immediately get mouth ulcers.”
Dhar district’s Chief Medical and Health officer Dr. Rakesh Shinde, however, says, “To check the claims of increase in diseases, we are conducting door-to-door surveys in the eight villages near the facility. We have so far found nine cases of oral cancer but there is no evidence that suggests a link with the waste disposal (at Ramky factory).” He adds that cases of skin diseases have also not been found in staggering numbers.
Sriniwas Dwivedi, MPPCB’s regional officer in Indore, who also has charge of Dhar, denies the claims of water contamination and says, “Water samples are collected from tubewells in Tarpura village every three months and there is no contamination.” However, he says they are yet to check the Bokneshwar temple well.
Keeping the fire burning
While various government departments are working to win the public’s trust, activists are trying to ensure that the intensity of the public outrage does not dip until the next hearing in the High Court on February 18.
Rajesh Choudhary, a lawyer and activist, whose intervention petition was accepted by the HC during the January 6 hearing, is now gathering documents related to the case.
“The consequences of this disposal may not be visible immediately, but over the years there may be leakages from the buried residue during the rains. If that happens, it is going to pollute the groundwater,” he says, claiming that some of the drains from the treatment plant and industries fall into two water bodies — the Kishanpura lake and Yashwant Sagar reservoir — both of which are in Indore district and are major sources of water in the area.
Back in Bhopal, which has been a battle ground for all issues related to the 1984 gas tragedy, activists extend their support to the protesters in Pithampur and reiterate their demand that the waste be disposed of by the Dow Chemical Company, a United States-based chemicals manufacturer which acquired UCIL in 2001.
“We don’t want any other place to suffer like Bhopal has,” says says Rashida Bee, a survivor of the tragedy, who runs the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karamchari Sangh, an organisation working for the survivors.
Activists accuse the government of “fooling” people by taking out the 358-tonne toxic waste. They say the “real waste” is buried underground. Rachna Dhingra of the Bhopal Group for Information and Action, an NGO, says that with each monsoon, the toxic contents of the waste buried underground and near a pond close to the UCIL factory is further spreading and contaminating water in a larger area..
Published – January 12, 2025 08:18 pm IST