India to hike Bhopal gas disaster payout: Amnesty

India's government has promised to increase compensation for Bhopal gas disaster victims as the 30th anniversary of the tragedy looms, Amnesty International said yesterday.
The pledge was given by India's chemicals minister Ananth Kumar late Friday in New Delhi to demonstrators demanding higher compensation for victims, the rights group said in statement.
Thousands of people were killed when 40 tonnes of lethal methyl isocyanate gas spewed from the Union Carbide chemical plant in the central city of Bhopal on December 2, 1984.
The long-term impact of toxins released after the gas leak led to a string of diseases, which the the state-run Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said had killed 25,000 people by 1994.
Amnesty called the Indian government's enhanced compensation commitment a "major victory" for survivors.
"India's government has agreed to increase a multi-million dollar compensation claim against Union Carbide over the 1984 gas leak... which poisoned more than half a million people," the London-based organisation said.