Union Carbide's Bhopal Plant (Essay Sample)

Internal analysis of Union Carbide's Bhopal Plant Name Course Institution Instructor Date The company Union Carbide is generally known for the worst ever chemical tragedy that still has aroused strong emotions even after two decades. Union Carbide was founded in the year 1934 before India’s independence. It was the first company to be established in India by the Americans. It was formerly known as Union Carbine Corporations before it changed its name to Union Carbide India Limited. It dealt with production and sell of dry cell batteries under the name ‘Eveready’. It was a big company as it managed to employ over 9000 workers then and had established 14 plants in five different divisions. Bhopal plant Bhopal plant was largely owned by Union Carbide Indian Limited, owning more than half its shares. The other shares were owned by private investors and the Indian government. It was established in 1970, and it was basically put up to produce pesticides which were mostly used by the farming industry. Their pesticides were mostly used by farmers who grew wheat, rice and cotton. This came after Indian was hit by a drought and there was a food shortage and thus farming industry had to be improved to meet the foods needs of the country. The construction site Bhopal was basically a no industry area with less industrial activity, unlike Chembur near Bombay where UCIL established most of its industries. The central government and the government of Madhya Pradesh advocated for establishment of the plant in that area. They even provided the land for construction of the plant with a 99 years lease  ADDIN EN.CITE Peterson20095(Peterson, 2009)5517Peterson, M.J. International Dimensions of Ethics Education in Science and Engineering Case Study SeriesInternational Dimensions of Ethics Education in Science and Engineering Case Study Series2009( HYPERLINK \l "_ENREF_3" \o "Peterson, 2009 #5"
Peterson, 2009). It created job opportunities to the local residence and later increased the area’s population as people moved from neighboring areas in search of employment. Electricity and railway lines were built around the area to serve the growing population. Later on the Bhopal plant increased its production to 5000 tons and this mean that the facility had to be expanded. Since Bhopal was classified as a general industry, the regulations allowed expansion of the plan to run at the same time with the production. Culture of business in Developing countries India being a third world country the nature of business is very different from developed countries. During the construction of UCIL Bhopal plant a lot of things were not taken into consideration hence making the tragedy one of the worst  ADDIN EN.CITE Peterson20095(Peterson, 2009)5517Peterson, M.J. International Dimensions of Ethics Education in Science and Engineering Case Study SeriesInternational Dimensions of Ethics Education in Science and Engineering Case Study Series2009( HYPERLINK \l "_ENREF_3" \o "Peterson, 2009 #5"
Peterson, 2009). For instance, a city plan was made that would ban the running of the Bhopal industry but the plan was never implemented therefore allowing it to run. Secondly the politicians needed political favors, due to this fact the political party in power chose not to move the residence from the industrial area in order to gain votes in the next election. They also did this in order to reduce extortion from land owners as compensation  ADDIN EN.CITE Browning19937(Browning, 1993)776Browning, J.B.1993http://books.google.co.ke/books?id=c5krAQAAIAAJ( HYPERLINK \l "_ENREF_1" \o "Browning, 1993 #7"
Browning, 1993). On the other hand, the government did not consider extension of piped water and sewers into the area and this alternative caused increase of pollution of nearby lakes, furthermore many...