Nobody is denying that an human element would have played a role in the accident.The issue here is whether,it is universal of companies in India(or for that matter, elsewhere).UC,Bhopal was not the first industrial/chemical plant in India-several such facilities have been built through out India by Indian,Western & Japanese companies/with assistance.How good/bad is the safety record for those????It’s directly related to the ivestment in proper training & safety procedures.
It would be foolish to say that customary safety standards are the same for India as the United States. All one has to do is look at a scaffolding installation to realize there are very different ideas about what constitutes an acceptable practice.
Union Carbide should have recognized that fact and realized that they could not expect the local operators to accept their procedures and implement them as a matter of course. In order to ensure the critical safety procedures were followed, Union Carbide would have had to have US trained managers on-site, with the authority to demand that the rules be followed. Apparently, this was not the case, and the breakdown of critical systems was the result.