Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday, 5 March, launched the recently announced PM Shram Yogi Maandhan Yojana at an event in Vastral near Ahmedabad in Gujarat.
However, during his speech at the event, the prime minister made a claim about the previous UPA government that turned out to be factually incorrect.
CLAIM
Speaking at the event, the Prime Minister highlighted the number of common service centres (CSCs) the current government has set up compared to the previous government.
“2014 से पहले देश में जहां लगभग 80 हजार कॉमन सर्विस सेंटर थें, वहीं अब हमारी सरकार में इनकी संख्या बढ़कर के 3,00,000 से ज्यादा हो गई है (The country had nearly 80,000 Common Service Centres before 2014. Under our government, the number has gone up to more than 3,00,000),” he said at the rally.
Modi can be heard making the claim at the 25:58 mark in this video.
TRUE OR FALSE?
The claim is false, as the UPA government’s official figures suggest otherwise.
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
While Modi was correct about the number of CSCs at present, his numbers for the UPA era were inaccurate.
A reply in the Lok Sabha in December 2013 by the then-minister of state in the Prime Minister’s Office, V Narayanasamy, shows that the number of CSCs was in excess of 1.20 lakh under the UPA government.
The PM was correct in his assertion that there are now being over 3 lakh CSCs currently across the country, as we can see in the reply to a question in the Lok Sabha on 13 February 2019, where Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology SS Ahluwalia had said that there are 3,12,651 CSCs India-wide.
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