IOC recently communicated to Dow that the technology purchase deal has been cancelled after IOC found that critical submissions made by Dow as part of contract negotiations were false. In their response to IOC, Dow officials have alleged that the cancellation of the deal has caused a loss of 1.5 million US dollars. The Indian government is yet to communicate its final decision on this matter.

Four organizations of survivors of the 1984 Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal today celebrated their victory in the campaign to disrupt the business contract between Indian Oil Corporation [IOC] and Dow Chemical Company. The eight month long campaign of the Bhopal organizations and their national supporters had demanded that IOC cancel its decision to purchase technology from Dow for its proposed mono ethylene glycol plant in Panipat, Haryana.

Contrary to Dow’s false assertions in the original bid, the Bhopal campaigners had presented evidence to the Government that confirmed that the Meteor technology Dow aimed to sell to IOC was a technology that had been patented and owned by American multinational Union Carbide. Charged with causing the death of over 20, 000 people in Bhopal Union Carbide Corporation wound up its business in India in 1994 and continues to abscond from the ongoing criminal case on the disaster.

American multinational Dow Chemical Company merged with Union Carbide in February 2001 with an eye to expanding its businesses in India and Asia building upon the network of the tainted corporation. The Bhopal survivors today hailed this first serious setback to the business expansion plans of Dow with drums and dancing on the street opposite the abandoned Union Carbide factory.

As part of the campaign against the proposed deal between IOC and Dow, the Bhopal survivors and their supporters had launched a nationwide boycott of IOC’s petrol pumps appealing to people not to fill “Bhopali blood” in their vehicles. Survivors also wrote letters to the Prime Minister in their blood calling for cancellation of the contract between IOC and Dow. In Chennai supporters of the Bhopal campaign led a rally from Mayiladuthurai Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar’s constituency against the proposed deal.

Rashida Bi, Champa Devi Shukla
Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmachari Sangh
9303132298
Syed M Irfan,
Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangharsh Morcha
9329026319
Shahid Noor
Bhopal ki Aawaaz
9826182226
Satinath Sarangi, Rachna Dhingra,
Bhopal Group for Information and Action
9826167369
Contact :
House No. 12, Gali No. 2, Near Naseer Masjid, Bag Umrao Dulha, Bhopal 462 010
For official confirmation of this news you may contact Mr. Srikumar, Head Corporate Communications, Indian Oil Corporation at 098113 54000.

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