“We made from water every living thing.” Holy Koran.

“We are the one who first inhaled poisonous Methyl Isocyanate gas and now we are still drinking same poisonous water.” says Femhida bi, an 80 year old resident of Blue Moon colony of Bhopal. Blue moon colony is a slum on the southern side of the Union Carbide factory and it was one of the worst affected areas during Bhopal Gas tragedy, world’s biggest industrial disaster.

In 2004, when Sambhavana Trust and Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyon Sangh, local NGOs fighting for tragedy survivors approached Supreme Court for safe drinking water, court ordered civic authorities of Bhopal City Corporation to install tap water in slums and also to distribute plastic water container among every four families. Government abided by the ruling and started supplying tap water from nearby Kolar dam.

Reporter interviewed residents of four slums around the Factory. Blue moon slum is on the northern part, Jai Prakash Nagar Slum is on the southern side, Aarif nagar, New Aarif nagar and Aayub Atal Nagar is on the north eastern side of the factory. Except a few residents of Aarif nagar almost everybody whom I interviewed showed dissatisfaction over underground water quality and frequency of water supply to tank.

Mohammad Mushtaq, a 63-year-old shopkeeper of Blue Moon Colony complains, “Unless and until we don’t fight, we are not supplied water regularly. Water supply entirely depends on the mercy of officials… Sometimes we get water every other day (which is rule) sometimes once in every nine days.”

To cope up with the problem of water shortage, the residents of Blue Moon colony carry water from Jai Prakash Nagar, but because of the damage in main water line and thus mixing of sewage water, from last one month they have resorted to ordering water tankers from city corporation office. When I asked Femhida Bi about usage of private hand pump in her house, she said we don’t use its water because of contamination. She says that this water is undrinkable and after consuming it, they suffered from stomach ache  headache, heartache, kidney ache and even vomiting. She claims that sometimes the water from hand pump comes of red in color and many a times it has foam. Ahira bi, a 25-year-old neighbor of Femhida bi chipped in by saying that even goats do not drink this water. When I checked veracity of this claim, I found that the water was transparent but it had pungent smell.

Old residents say that Union Carbide India Limited used to drain their waste on the grounds of Blue Moon slum and they even made Solar Evaporation Pond, an artificial pond, for this purpose. Remnants of that pond are still present there. This pond and contamination is mentioned in the Centre for Science and Environment’s (CSE) latest report on groundwater contamination in and around factory. Study group recorded high level of Lindane (10.4 ppm), and Chromium (1065 ppm) in the soil of Solar Evaporation pond. Likewise in the Blue Moon Colony the presence of pesticides was recorded 3.2 times of the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS).

Government’s performance in providing safe drinking water is poor. According to OXFAM’s ‘Slums of Bhopal’ study in 2006, over 9.4 lakh people live in 543 slums inside Bhopal. There is virtually no or limited provision of water supply in 315 slums
inside Bhopal.

As soon as 25th anniversary of the accident started approaching, the government decided to build overhead water tank in every slum. In the Blue Moon colony also, government built one concrete overhead water tank, but unfortunately tank is waiting to be inaugurated for the last six months. Residents say that it might be inaugurated on coming Republic Day.

Despite this acute shortage of drinking water, water is not the biggest worry of people here. The bigger threat is the on going construction of Chhola Flyover. This ambitious project is leading to massive forced land acquisition and displacement of the residents of Blue moon Colony, New Aarif Nagar and Ayyub Atal nagar. People fear about near extinction of New Aarif Nagar.

Mohammad Mushtaq, a resident of blue moon colony says “officials bulldozed my house and other belongings of worth 2 lakh rupees. They gave us meager Rs. 1900, 5 kgs of floor and a piece of land at around 20 kms from here in Parbakhedi as compensation.” On asking him that will he shift to Parbakhedi? The reply was a determined no. Right now he has built temporary house and is living illegally here. Government even bulldozed some portions of houses e.g. Femhida bi and her son worked hard and saved money for years to build their own pucca house with two toilets but government bulldozed that part, now they have to go out for excreta.

This reporter tried to contact Madhya Pradesh Urban Support Programme (MPUSP) directorate officials and Assistant Commissioner of Bhopal City Corporation twice for their stand on this cruel bulldozing of houses, but they were unavailable for comment.

Wrote as a part of slum reporting exercise at ACJ in 2010.