NEW DELHI, India - The Indian government today described as "totally unacceptable" Union Carbide's tentative agreement with private lawyers to pay $350 million to victims of the Bhopal gas disaster.

"Union Carbide is taking every step to ensure that the case is settled for a very low amount," said a written statement from the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers.

"The government has not endorsed any settlement on the lines reported in the press. The amount of settlement is inadequate and has always been so and is therefore totally unacceptable," the statement said.

Several U.S. attorneys went to India immediately after the December 1984 gas leak to sign up victims and their survivors as clients. The leak killed an estimated 2,000 people and injured 200,000 others.

India enacted special legislation Feb. 20, 1985, making the government the sole representative able to file a lawsuit in the United States on behalf of victims of the world's worst industrial accident.

Earlier today, a ministry spokesman in a statement read over the telephone reiterated that only the government could represent the victims.

A Carbide spokesman confirmed Sunday that the firm has agreed to pay $350 million into a special Bhopal fund that he said would produce between $500 million and $600 million "over a period of time" for the victims.

One lawyer who negotiated the agreement said it calls for Carbide to pay out the money over a period of eight to 10 years with the payments to victims administered by U.S. Judge John F. Keenan in New York.

The disaster occurred Dec. 2-3 , 1984, at Carbide's pesticide plant in central India when tons of lethal methyl isocyanate gas leaked out and engulfed the slums surrounding the factory.

The Indian government is seeking about $1 billion in compensation not subject to what it terms "insulting and onerous conditions that it provide a detailed accounting on how the money was to be spent."