6 days ago
Official apathy delays cancer, renal treatment for Bhopal Gas survivors
Bhopal: Usha Ahuja, whose husband Pankaj, a gas victim who suffered from cancer and died during treatment on July 27, 2024, has been making rounds of the gas welfare commissioner office since her husband was diagnosed with cancer in May 2024, to get an ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh.
More than a year after the death of her husband, she says, "I am fed up. I don't know how many more times I will have to make rounds of the gas welfare commissioner office to get the money. When my husband was diagnosed with cancer, we thought the ex-gratia given to cancer and renal failure patients among the gas victims would help us in his treatment, but he died in just three months. I have two daughters aged 18 and 14 years. This money means a lot to me.
I even hired a lawyer in an attempt to get the money early, and the welfare commissioner is said to have decided the case in our favour, but the order has not been uploaded on the office's website for two months, thereby making our agonising wait even longer," said Usha while talking to TOI.
Usha is not the only survivor of a gas victim who died of cancer or renal failure and is waiting for the disbursement of ex-gratia, which should ideally have been given to her when her husband was diagnosed with cancer.
There are gas victims and their survivors who are facing an inordinate delay in receiving the amount of ex-gratia assistance of Rs 2 lakh offered to cancer and renal failure patients among gas victims.
Azad, whose father Geeta Prasad died of cancer on May 23, 2023, is also among the people waiting for the payment of the ex-gratia amount so that he could make partial repayment of Rs 3.5 lakh, which he borrowed during the treatment of his father.
"I applied for ex-gratia after the death of my father, but if it comes my way early, it would help me pay back some of the amount I borrowed for the treatment of my father," he told TOI.
In 2010, when the group of ministers on Bhopal in the Union govt announced several measures to ameliorate the condition of the victims, an ex-gratia assistance of Rs 2 lakh to cancer and renal failure patients among gas victims was also one of the measures.
After a person or his family members apply for the ex-gratia, the matter goes to the welfare commissioner for arbitration, who is a serving judge of the Madhya Pradesh high court.
Once he is satisfied that the person for whom the ex-gratia is being sought is a gas victim and also suffers from cancer or renal failure, he passes the order for payment of ex-gratia to the patient or his family. This process takes 12 to 18 months, and there is so much paperwork involved.
Majority of persons applying for the assistance have to hire a lawyer to 'fight' their case, like Usha Ahuja has done.
What is adding further to their woes is the fact that orders of the welfare commissioner are not being uploaded since May 5 on the website of the office due to a lack of logistic support, including staff with technical know-how to do it, thereby further delaying the payments to sufferers for whom every day is important.
The co-convener of the Bhopal Group for Action & Information (BGAI), an NGO working among survivors of Bhopal gas victims, has written a letter to the secretary of the ministry of chemical & fertilisers, which handles the issues related to the
Bhopal gas tragedy
and its victims, drawing his attention towards the delay in payment of ex-gratia to gas victims suffering from cancer and renal failure.
She has not only raised the issue of no new orders of payment being uploaded on the website of the welfare commissioner office since May 5, 2025, but further said that the average time taken for adjudicating individual cancer and renal failure cases is 12 to 18 months. "This is an unconscionable delay, especially considering the severity of illness involved in far too many cases. The claimant passes away even before the order is issued," she said.
Registrar in the welfare commissioner office, Renuka Kanchal, was not available for comments. Director of gas relief, Swatantra Kumar Singh, said, "I am not aware of it. It is not connected to me, so it won't be apt for me to make a comment."
