Case Study Of Bhopal Gas Tragedy

The multinational corporations today have a radical impact on the international economic system. It is so because the development of international transactions of the multinationals has affected the more traditional forms of capital flows and international trade in many economies. Today they comprise a dominant force in the world economy.

The worth of the products sold by the MNCs in 1971 was more than $ 500 billion which was about one-fifth of the GNP of the entire world, excepting that of socialist economies. In the host countries, the volume of their production was about $ 330 billion. The present growth rate of their production in the host countries is a magnificent 10 per cent per annum which is approximately twice as compared to growth

The Bhopal Gas plant had a license to make Methyl isocyanine-based pesticides. The Union Carbide had 51% and the Indian subsidiary UC India Ltd. had 49% of stock. In November 1984, they had decided to close down the plant. For quite some years before the production rate was going down.

In the history of chemical plants disasters, three other wake-up calls were reported. Flixborough accident in 1974 in U.K. when certain modifications carried out in the plant led to the leakage and explosion of cyclohexane, which killed 28 people. The Piper Alpha offshore oil platform disaster in 1988, near Scotland, killed 167 people and resulted in $ 2 billion losses. The third occurred in Toulouse, France in 2001, killing 29 people, and injuring thousands. A warehouse holding 300 tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertilizer exploded and damaged 10000 buildings, including schools, a university, and a hospital. But we have not learnt from the

1. Maintenance was neglected and the trained maintenance personnel were reduced as economy measure. Need for quick diagnosis aggravates the situation by causing considerable psychological stress on the plant personnel.
2. Training activities for the supervisory personnel were stopped. This led to inadequate training of the personnel to handle emergencies.
3. Periodical Safety Inspection teams from U.S. which visited previously were also