Sambhavna Clinic closes, protest songs begin

Bhopal

After nearly three decades of providing free medical aid to gas victims, the Sambhavna Clinic in the Kazi Camp area of the state capital closed down on Wednesday due to financial difficulties.

The closure of the clinic coincided with the commencement of an indefinite sit-in protest at the clinic premises, with activists and victims singing protest songs to press for their demands.

The clinic, run by the Sambhavna Trust, ran into financial trouble following the cancellation of its mandatory Foreign Contributions Regulation Act (FCRA) registration by the government.

According to the trust, the clinic relied on financial aid provided by generous individuals in nearly 40 countries to offer a mix of health and rehabilitation services to gas victims.

Controversy first erupted in 2017-18 when the trust failed to meet a government deadline for submitting its annual report. The trust, however, blames the delay on a technical glitch in the website of the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Penalising the trust for failing to comply with the schedule (for submission of reports), the MHA revoked the FCRA registration for the trust, froze its bank accounts, and placed a three-year ban on it.

Protesters say that delays in the reinstatement of the FCRA clearance gradually choked services at the clinic, which, according to them, employed over 50 people and cared for thousands of gas victims.

Once celebrated globally for their rehabilitation efforts, activists representing gas victims have often been vociferous in their criticism of successive governments, whom they blame for neglecting the victims’ plight.

On the night of 2-3 December 1984, a leak at the Union Carbide pesticide plant on the (then) northern fringe of Bhopal released a poisonous gas into the atmosphere. Scores were killed instantly, while others continue to battle the after-effects of the toxins that entered their bloodstream on that fateful night in Bhopal.