The Sambhavna Trust was formed in June 1995 with the main objective of improving the health and healthcare of survivors of the Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal. On 3 December 1994, 10th anniversary of the disaster in Bhopal, an appeal ran in the UK’s Guardian newspaper asking for funds to provide free medical care to the sick, suffering survivors of Carbide’s poison gases. Many thousands of people, mostly in the UK, responded with donations. The Trust opened a Clinic in September 1996 in 2000-sq-ft building and welcomed the first of the thousands to whom in the years to come, it would offer loving, attentive and effective care.
In 2005 we moved to a spacious clinic in two acres of land near Union Carbide in the heart of the gas-affected area. Between 1996 and 2019 our staff strength grew from 12 to 61 and the number of people registered for long term care at the Clinic was 35,355.
In 1996 the Clinic saw on average 63 individuals per day, by 2019 it was 92. Care provision began with modern medicine, ayurveda, yoga and community health work. By October 2019, we also offered pathological investigations, ultrasound, gynaecology, ophthalmology clinics, a herb garden and herbal medicine making unit, as well as emergency & paramedic services and community research.
Our donor base grew to 30, 000 people from 45 countries, our spend from 10.68 Lakhs in 1996 to 2.5 Crores in 2018. Fundraising was done by the Bhopal Medical Appeal, a UK-based charity and the Sambhavna Trust was registered under India’s Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) authorising it to receive funds from abroad. This is how the Clinic ran for 23 years during which it received one national and three international awards and published several articles in prestigious medical journals.
In October 2019, Sambhavna Trust’s FCRA Registration was abruptly cancelled, its bank account frozen by India’s Home Ministry. It was prohibited from applying for re-registration under FCRA for 3 years and told to pay a fine of about Rs. 18 lakhs. The reason given was that Sambhavna Trust had failed to submit its Annual Report for 2017–18 by March 31, 2019. In fact the MHA portal meant to receive the Annual Report was malfunctioning and it was not possible to upload the Annual Report. Nearly two dozen e-mails were sent to Home Ministry officials with screen shots of messages proving that the MHA portal was malfunctioning, but none was even acknowledged.
The Sambhavna Trust had no option but to pay the fine of Rs. 18 lakhs and wait 3 years to apply for re-registration under FCRA.
How would the Trust cope? It ran a powerful video on a top Indian crowd-funding site but it bombed as potential donors couldn’t believe that survivors of the disaster would still be ill and needing medical care after four decades! Long term supporters provided some funds, but they were not enough. The staff volunteered to take a 30 % pay cut and for a while the Clinic continued its work on a limited budget provided by the Azeem Premji Philanthropic Initiatives (APPI). Staff strength fell from 61 to 51 in 2019 and the average number of persons receiving care each day declined from 91 to 75.
On February 2, 2023, the Sambhavna Trust filed an application for re-registration under FCRA at the MHA portal. The portal promises a decision within 3 months, but 22 months later 67% of applications have been decided, but ours remains “under process”. Then, in mid-December 2024 the APPI official who had promised a 6-month grant to the Clinic withdrew the offer, leaving us with liabilities of Rs. 1,24,61,373/- in salary arrears and unpaid bills and no funds to continue beyond December 2024.
The people receiving care and staff of the Sambhavna Trust Clinic consider it wrong to accept a situation in which the Clinic is to close for lack of funds while donors abroad are willing to fund the specialised care that the Bhopal survivors so urgently need.
All because of arbitrary delay in granting re-registration under FCRA to the Sambhavna Trust by the Home Ministry. We, beneficiaries and staff, held a meeting on December 15 and formed the Union Carbide Poison Victims Healthcare Rights Front. On 16 December the Front wrote to the Home Minister asking for quick granting of FCRA Registration to Sambhavna Trust. We await a reply. The beneficiaries and staff of Sambhavna Trust Clinic are resolved to intensify their efforts to have the Clinic open its doors in the new year.