The government on Thursday approved the recommendations of the Group of Ministers (GoM) on the Bhopal gas leak tragedy to provide additional ex-gratia compensation of `71.28 crores for the victims.
This was decided at a meeting of Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Revealing this an official release said, the approval would facilitate payment of ex-gratia of `5 lakh each to additional 1,703 victims with permanent disability, and `1 lakh ex-gratia to 1,783 persons with temporary disability.
It has also been decided to pay the amount to the identified victims after adjusting the compensation amount already received by them.
It also paves the way for payment of ex-gratia of `5 lakh each to 42 victims of “injury of utmost severity”. But in this case too payment would be made after adjusting the compensation amount they had already received. This ex-gratia amount is in addition to `669 crores which the government has already provided for payment to the specified categories of Bhopal gas victims.
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Nod to biotech regulator
AGE CORRESPONDENT
NEW DELHI
Nov. 18: With the resolution of differences among health, environment and science & technology ministries over jurisdictional issue, the government on Thursday cleared a bill to set up a biotechnology regulator. Once passed by the Parliament, the new Biotechnology Regulatory Authority (BRAI) of India will replace the existing multiple mechanisms under different ministries.
The bill intending to set up BRAI was approved at a meeting of the Union Cabinet chaired by PM Manmohan Singh. The proposed authority will be an autonomous and independent body to deal with safety and efficacy issues related to genetically engineered products. The BRAI would be placed under a Committee of Secretaries headed by secretary of department of science and technology with representation from all relevant ministries, sources said.