Five organisatons, which are working for the rights of the survivors of the Bhopal gas disaster, on Monday demanded the Chief Minister’s intervention to ensure adequate compensation for all the victims of the Union Carbide mishap. The organisations said that in view of the upcoming hearing of the curative petitions for compensation in the Supreme Court on September 2, the Chief Minister must direct officials to revise the figures of disaster related injury and death in the State Government’s petition. The organisations also demanded that the Chief Minister must ensure that the Central Government pays additional compensation of `2 lakh to each gas victim. The organisations have sent a letter to the Chief Minister on this matter affecting over half a million victims. Balkrishna Namdeo of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Nirashrit Pensionbhogi Sangharsh Morcha said that following the June 2010 directions of the Group of Ministers, less than 40,000 victims of the disaster have been paid additional compensation. He said that denial of additional compensation to about 5,26,000 claimants was based on the Government’s arbitrary stance that they suffered only temporary injury due to the gas leak in 1984. Nawab Khan of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Manila Purush Sangharsh Morcha said that the survivors of the gas disaster were looking forward to the hearing of the Curative petition that has been pending for the last three years. “Unless correct figures of injury and death caused by the disaster are presented by the State and Central Governments, the judges will not be able to dispense justice as per the expectations of the Bhopal survivors,” he added. Rashida Bee of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationary Karmchari Sangh pointed out that the state government has sought compensation for only 5,295 deaths in the Curative petition whereas in a criminal matter before the Supreme Court the State Government had presented a figure of 15,342 deaths attributable to the gas disaster. “Both State and Central Governments have arbitrarily assumed over 90% of the survivors to be temporarily injured by the gas exposure whereas Union Carbide’s own document States that damage due to methyl isocyanate exposure is permanent,” she said. “The Chief Minister must direct officials to revise figures of injury and death based on hospital records and research data so that the Curative petition is amended well before September 2,” said Safreen Khan of Children Against Dow/Carbide.