34 SOCIAL SCIENTIST to cover wider environmental hazards; laws related to production and use of pesticides, drugs, dyes, foodstuffs, etc; laws relating to compensations; laws relating to punitive action; executive mechanism to implement and monitor the above. In order that the above noted measures be effectively initiated and implemented, it is essential th^t pertinent information relating to these aspects be made freely available in published form. In many of these matters, there is at present unwarranted confidentiality usually justified on the basis of companies' interests. Open availability of such information would indeed assist the government in discharging its responsibility towards the people and, in the specific instance of the Bhopal accident, such information, had it been freely made public, could have averted the terrible sufferings of this grim tragedy. The Disaster: Mode and Background The crucial question of how a calamity of such gruesome enormity occured cannot be seen in isolation from the complete subordination of safety codes, preventive maintenance and manpower policies to the singular task of increasing returns. This would become clear when a variety of information on the operation of the plant and the sequence of events at UCIL on the 2/3 December, 1984 are pieced together to give a self-consistent explanation. Confusion surrounding the nature of the gas—whether it was MIC, Phosgene, or a mixture of the two, or^something else—can be removed only "when complete process details of the UCIL plant, a closely guarded secret of UCC (USA), are unravelled. However, contrary to the claims of UCIL, Bhopal on the sequence of operations and the factory lay out, unambiguously shows that a very small amount of phosgene fs allowed to be present in the MIC as an inhibitor that prevents the onset of self-addition reactions like dimer and trimer formation in the stored MIC. Various other compounds are included to prevent run-away reactions. All these substances are carefully monitored, excess amounts of these traces must be controlled since they may also act as catalysts for several uncontrolled reactions. It is not known whether these control standards were maintained and how many of them had been sacrificed for economy reasons. It is important, however, to note that during "Operation Faith", MIC in the remaing tank was found to contain phosgene in much higher proportion than stated by UCIL. Several parts of the safety system comprising the Relief Valve Vent Header (RVVH), the Vent Gas Scrubber (VGS), and the Flare Tower were hardly in satisfactory condition. At the time of accident a vent line leading into the RVVH was being washed, the line connecting the VGS to the flare tower was mastercarded for repairs, the motors meant for pumping caustic solution into the VGS were down and certain meters ip the control panel monitoring the MIC tanks were malfunctioning.