Modi suffers embarrassment over I-Day claim on village electrification, PIB under him issues "denial"

Photo tweeted by Modi of Nagla Fatela villagers

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has suffered a major embarrassment when the Government of India's Press Information Bureau (PIB) was forced to issue a statement which virtually amounted to denying Modi's claim in his Independence Day speech that a village near Delhi, Nagla Fatela, received electricity under him 70 years after Independence.
Modi, in his Independence Day speech had said that, over the last one year, out of 18,000 villages, more than 10,000 villages had been electrified, and one of them was village of Nagla Fatela, which "is only three hours from Delhi, but it took more than 70 years for it to get electricity."
He added, "I have been told they are with us, watching this celebration of Independence Day”. His official twitter handle, @PMOIndia went so far as to post a photograph sayig, “People of Nagla Phatela watching the Independence Day celebrations for the first time. More power to them. :)”
A Finance Express story, on the very next day, found that there was no such thing, even as quoting the gram pradhan of the village refuting Modi's claim saying that pictures tweeted by Modi, and thereafter by Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal were "not of their village and no programme was organized in the village on Independence Day."

“No programme was organized in our village. The picture with children watching the Independence Day programme does not belong to our village,” the village pradhan said. The report quoted "people in the village" as saying that that "poles have been set up and electricity metres have been installed in the houses but there is no power supply."
The PIB was forced to come up with a statement, titled "Electrification of Village Nagla Fatela, Hathras -Facts at a Glance", only confirming FE report. It said, the village in Hathras district of UP "was proposed by the Uttar Pradesh Government under 12th plan of Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY) and the Detailed Project Report (DPR) for this purpose was submitted through State Level Steering committee, headed by Chief Secretary of the State on date July 13, 2013."

Power Minister's tweet remains intact

"For this village, the Detailed Project Report (DPR) proposed connections to all households including creation of infrastructure one transformer of 63kVA, four transformers of 25kVA, HT 1.57 km, LT 1.54 km (three phase) and LT 0.62 km (single phase)", the PIB continued.
"The DPR was sanctioned by Government of India on December 20, 2013 and sanction letter was released by Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) on January 6, 2014", the PIB said, adding, the power distribution company (DISCOM, Agra), "confirmed on February 26, 2015 that village Nagla Fatela is still un-electrified."
The PIB further said, DISCOM Agra, "reported in October 2015 that infrastructure work for electrification of the village Nagla Fatela has been completed and the village has been electrified. Accordingly the village has been shown as electrified" in official records.
While PMO deleted its tweet which showed a photo of group of people allegedly from Nagla Fatela village and watching his speech on a TV set, Goyal, the power minister, has not (click HERE).
Goyal, in fact, went further and tweeted not one but several photos of allegedly from the same village showing people watching Independence Day celebrations claiming that they were in the newly electrified villages.
A top site comments, "From the PIB clarification, it is abundantly clear that not only did the Prime Minister make a false claim on his achievement, his government had also not played any part even in the process to create infrastructure to electrify Nagla Fatela village."

Comments

Dalit rights and political tensions: Why is Mevani at odds with Congress leadership?

While I have known Jignesh Mevani, one of the dozen-odd Congress MLAs from Gujarat, ever since my Gandhinagar days—when he was a young activist aligned with well-known human rights lawyer Mukul Sinha’s organisation, Jan Sangharsh Manch—he became famous following the July 2016 Una Dalit atrocity, in which seven members of a family were brutally assaulted by self-proclaimed cow vigilantes while skinning a dead cow, a traditional occupation among Dalits.

Powering pollution, heating homes: Why are Delhi residents opposing incineration-based waste management

While going through the 50-odd-page report Burning Waste, Warming Cities? Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Incineration and Urban Heat in Delhi , authored by Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran of the well-known advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability, I came across a reference to Sukhdev Vihar — a place where I lived for almost a decade before moving to Moscow in 1986 as the foreign correspondent of the daily Patriot and weekly Link .

Boeing 787 under scrutiny again after Ahmedabad crash: Whistleblower warnings resurface

A heart-wrenching tragedy has taken place in Ahmedabad. As widely reported, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane crashed shortly after taking off from the city’s airport, currently operated by India’s top tycoon, Gautam Adani. The aircraft was carrying 230 passengers and 12 crew members. As expected, the crash has led to an outpouring of grief across the country. At the same time, there have been demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and the Civil Aviation Minister.

Global NGO slams India for media clampdown during conflict, downplays Pakistan

A global civil rights group, Civicus has taken strong exception to how critical commentaries during the “recent conflict” with Pakistan were censored in India, with journalists getting “targeted”. I have no quarrel with the Civicus view, as the facts mentioned in it are all true.

Whither SCOPE? Twelve years on, Gujarat’s official English remains frozen in time

While writing my previous blog on how and why Narendra Modi went out of his way to promote English when he was Gujarat chief minister — despite opposition from people in the Sangh Parivar — I came across an interesting write-up by Aakar Patel, a well-known name among journalists and civil society circles.

Remembering Vijay Rupani: A quiet BJP leader who listened beyond party lines

Late evening on June 12, a senior sociologist of Indian origin, who lives in Vienna, asked me a pointed question: Of the 241 persons who died as a result of the devastating plane crash in Ahmedabad the other day, did I know anyone? I had no hesitation in telling her: former Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani, whom I described to her as "one of the more sensible persons in the BJP leadership."

Why India’s renewable energy sector struggles under 2,735 compliance hurdles

Recently, during a conversation with an industry representative, I was told how easy it is to set up a startup in Singapore compared to India. This gentleman, who had recently visited Singapore, explained that one of the key reasons Indians living in the Southeast Asian nation prefer establishing startups there is because the government is “extremely supportive” when it comes to obtaining clearances. “They don’t want to shift operations to India due to the large number of bureaucratic hurdles,” he remarked.

Guha plans book to counter Dalit, Marxist, and right-wing critics of Gandhi, recalls Modi’s 'pernicious lie' on Patel

Let me first confess: writing about an event three weeks after it has taken place is no good, especially for a newsperson. However, ever since I attended the public lecture by well-known historian Ramachandra Guha on May 18, organised by Sarthak Prakashan for the release of the Gujarati edition of his book monumental book "India After Gandhi", frankly, I kept wondering if he had said anything newsworthy apart from what had already appeared in the media ever since the book's first edition came out in 2007. Call it my inertia or whatever.

Two decades on, hunger still haunts Gujarat: Survey exposes stark gap behind poverty claims

A Niti Aayog report , released about two years ago, estimated that in Gujarat — which our powers-that-be have long considered a model state — 11.66% of people are "multidimensionally poor," a term referring to an index that seeks to estimate "multiple and simultaneous deprivations" at the household level across three macro categories: health, education, and living standards.

Search This Blog