Digitise Bhopal Gas Tragedy Survivors' Records: HC directs Centre, MP Govt
Madhya Pradesh High Court
Jabalpur: The Madhya Pradesh High Court has directed the Union Health Ministry, the state Chief Secretary, and the Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Centre to finalise a comprehensive action plan within a week for the digitisation of medical records of patients affected by the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy.
The HC’s order dated January 6 was uploaded on Wednesday.
According to the PTI report, the division bench of Chief Justice SK Kait and Justice Vivek Jain issued the directives while hearing a contempt petition filed by the Bhopal Gas Peedith Mahila Udyog Sanghathan on rehabilitation of the survivors of the 1984 tragedy.
“It seems that the respondents are not serious about the work to be completed”, the bench observed.
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“Accordingly, the Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India and Chief Secretary, Madhya Pradesh along with Director, Bhopal Memorial Hospital Research Centre, shall sit together within one week and finalise the action plan so that the issue in the present petition can be executed in a timeline and expeditiously”, the bench stated.
The court also directed the respondents “to file day-to-day progress report of the first meeting of the aforesaid authority and ensure the release of funds required for the purpose in question”.
The affidavit filed by the respondents in compliance of the court’s directive of December 9, 2024, stated that “the medical records prior to the year 2014 are very old, therefore, only 3,000 pages per day can be scanned”.
“According to which, it is estimated that the work will be completed in a total of about 550 days, however, the exact timelines will be ascertainable only after the work is commenced”, the affidavit stated.
The affidavit further said that for establishing the cloud server under the e-hospital project, a proposal has been obtained from the NIC which is pending financial approval of the Finance Department for which the budget is expected to be allocated in the Financial Year 2025-26.
Thereafter the scanned record will be incorporated into the said server, it said.
According to the proposal given by the NIC, the entire work would be completed in 12 months.
Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that a group of doctors filed a petition in the Indore bench of Madhya Pradesh High Court on Monday, requesting a stay on the planned disposal of 337 metric tonnes of toxic waste from the abandoned Union Carbide factory linked to Bhopal gas tragedy, which is set to be moved to Dhar.
