The Bhopal Gas Tragedy
 <<Previous
THE JOURNEY FROM VIRGINIA TO BHOPAL Cont...In
1966, an agreement was signed between GoI and UCIL. Under the agreement, UCIL
would import 1,200 tons of Sevin from the parent company in the United States.
UCC would build a factory in India to produce Sevin within five years. The
location of the factory would be Kali Grounds in Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh) (Refer
Exhibit I). In 1969, UCC set up its pesticide unit in Bhopal.
The GoI granted a license to UCIL to manufacture 5,000 tons of Sevin a year.
UCIL would produce Sevin and all the chemical ingredients required in India
itself. Eduardo Munoz, the Argentinean agronomic engineer, who was with UCC,
was entrusted the responsibility of making the project a success. Eduardo Munoz
felt that manufacturing 5,000 tons of Sevin would require considerable
quantities of MIC to be manufactured and stored.
|
He was not in favour of storing huge quantity of MIC
and suggested an alternative like batch production of MIC to meet
production line requirements as they rose. This would eliminate the need
to store large quantity of MIC on site. However, this production
philosophy was against the American industrial culture and UCC officials
turned down the suggestion saying, "You have absolutely no need to worry,
dear Eduardo Munoz. Your Bhopal plant will be as inoffensive as a
chocolate factory." [3]
Eduardo Munoz was also against the proposed site of the factory as it was
too close to areas where people lived, such as the slums in Oriya Bustee,
Jayprakash Nagar and Chola (Refer Exhibit I). However, UCC officials
thought Kali Grounds was the right place to build the plant. |
|
These officials submitted their request for a sixty hectare
plot of land on Kali Grounds. According to municipal planning regulations, no
industry likely to give off toxic emissions could be set up on a site where the
prevailing wind might carry effluents into densely populated areas. At the Kali
Grounds the wind usually blew from north to south, toward the slums, the railway
station and finally toward the overpopulated parts of the old town. Under such
circumstances, the application should have been rejected. But the UCC officials
did not mention that their proposed factory would be making pesticides out of
the most toxic gases available in the chemical industry.
At the beginning of the summer of 1972, UCC dispatched to UCIL all the plans for
the factory's construction and development. In 1979, the Bhopal plant was
inaugurated and work started. Initially, when the factory was not ready to make
the MIC needed to produce Sevin, the UCIL management decided to import several
hundred barrels from the parent company's factory in the United States. In May
1980, the chemical reactors of the Bhopal plant produced their first gallons of
MIC and dispatched them into three huge tanks. The new CEO of UCC, Warren
Anderson, came over specially from the United States for the event.
ALL'S NOT WELL WITH THE BHOPAL PLANT
THE TRAGEDY
UNION CARBIDE TAKES THE OFFENSIVE
THE SETTLEMENT
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION:
EXHIBIT I THE SITE FOR THE PESTICIDE FACTORY
ADDITIONAL READINGS AND REFERENCES:
[3] It was five past
midnight in Bhopal, Dominique Lapierre & Javier Moro, Full Circle Publishing,
2001.
2010, ICMR (IBS Center for Management Research).All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted
in any form or by any means - electronic or mechanical, without permission.
To order copies, call +91- 8417- 236667 or write to ICMR,
Survey No. 156/157, Dontanapalli Village, Shankerpalli Mandal,
Ranga Reddy District,
Hyderabad-501504.
Andhra Pradesh, INDIA.
Ph: +91- 8417- 236667,
Fax: +91- 8417- 236668
E-mail: info@icmrindia.org
Website: www.icmrindia.org
|
More Classifications...