NEW DELHI, India - India said today Union Carbide Corp.'s offer to pay $350 million to the victims of a gas leak at the firm's plant in Bhopal is "totally unacceptable" and that there can be no settlement without Indian government approval.

"Union Carbide is taking every possible step to ensure that the case is settled for a very low amount," India said of the tentative settlement between the Union Carbide and lawyers for the victims.

The Indian government was not a party to the agreement. India's Parliament has given the government the sole right to represent the victims.

"The reported amount of settlement is inadequate and has always been so and is, therefore, totally unacceptable," the government said in a statement. New Delhi has not revealed how much it is seeking on behalf of victims.

More than 2,000 people were killed and 200,000 injured when methyl isocyanate leaked from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal , about 350 miles south of New Delhi, in December 1984. It was history's worst industrial accident.

"It has to be pointed out that there cannot be any settlement without agreement by the government of India," said the statement released by the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers.

"It also has to be clarified that the government has not endorsed any settlement on the lines reported in the press," it said.

"The government's position in this regard has been that it will only settle for an amount that will fully and fairly compensate all the victims," the ministry said.

A Union Carbide spokesman at company headquarters in Danbury, Conn., said the $350 million settlement, if approved by U.S. District Judge John Keenan in New York, would cover everyone harmed by the disaster, regardless of whether they had filed suit.

Keenan is presiding over more than 100 lawsuits seeking billions of dollars in claims from Union Carbide.

A Carbide spokesman said a special Bhopal fund would produce between $500 million and $600 million "over a period of time."

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 Keenan in New York.

Earlier Stanley Chesley, a Cincinnati plaintiff's lawyer who negotiated the agreement with Carbide, said the Indian government has no valid legal claims in the Bhopal litigation.

"They don't represent the individual victims," Chesley said of the Indian government. "The only people who can do that are their lawyers."

Chesley emphasized that "there is no piece of paper" that has been signed by the parties and that some key issues remain unresolved.

Carbide said it would sign off only if the agreement "settles all claims with finality." And Rob Hager, a Washington lawyer appointed by Keenan to represent public-interest groups involved in the case, said the $350 million figure was "ludicrous" and would provide only about $7,000 in medical and other expenses for each of the victims.

"By American jury standards, this is laughably low," said Hager. "We will oppose this, no question about it."