Dhar (Madhya Pradesh): The Congress on Sunday protested at Pithampur town in Madhya Pradesh's Dhar district where waste from Bhopal Union Carbide factory is planned to be incinerated, calling it a plot to spread cancer in Indore.

Congress state president Jitu Patwari led the protest against the disposal of waste at Pithampur, an industrial town about 30 km from Indore and 45 km from the district headquarters Dhar.

The waste is lying at the Union Carbide factory in the state capital where highly toxic gas methyl isocyanate (MIC) leaked in the intervening night of December 2-3, 1984, killing 5,479 people and leaving more than five lakh others with health effects and long-term disabilities.

Patwari said a huge amount is being spent to control pollution but the BJP government in MP is burning the toxic waste at Pithampur to further its land-related agenda.

"This act of burning Union Carbide waste is criminal. The government is trying to destroy the future of those who provided land (for industries) and because of whom Pithampur was set up. It is also playing with the future and health of those who came here from across the country to work," he said.

At the same time, Patwari said, BJP chief ministers are bringing in investments to the state by spending hundreds of crores.

He said that the pollution due to the incineration of the waste will affect areas in a 100-km periphery. It will also affect the water of Yashwant Sagar dam, from where the water is supplied to Indore, India's cleanest city.

"This is a conspiracy to spread cancer in Indore," he said.

Rachna Dhingra of 'Bhopal Group for Information & Action', which is dedicated to the welfare of the gas leak survivors, accused the Central and State governments of creating a "slow-motion Bhopal" in and around Pithampur.

She said that it has been proposed that 337 metric tonnes of Union Carbide's hazardous waste will be incinerated at Pithampur. This is only one per cent of the total waste on the ground and nobody is talking about the buried and semi-buried hazardous waste at Bhopal factory site, she said.

Quoting a presentation of the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, she claimed 900 tonnes of residue will be generated after incineration of 337 metric tonnes of the Union Carbide waste.

Dhingra said this hazardous waste should be secured to prevent further contamination of soil and groundwater.

"The Union Carbide should take the hazardous waste back to the United States," she said. "When the Centre told the court that the 'polluter pays' principle should be implemented, which means the polluter has to pay, you have to make them pay. But here, the people of Pithampur are going to pay the price," she said.