Piyush Goyal faces social media troll over 'electrification' image
New Delhi, Apr 29 (IBNS): Union Minister Piyush Goyal faced social media trolls after he shared satellite images of India, taken at night, to showcase the milestone touched by his government by the electrification of all villages in the country.
Through the image, it seems that the minister tried to showcase the before-and-after scenario following the achievement of the Centre.
He captioned the image as:"Under the decisive leadership of PM @NarendraModi India has finally been able to electrify all its villages before the set target date. With the elimination of darkness from the lives of fellow Indian villagers, we commit ourselves to building a new and #PowerfulIndia."
NDTV reported, "The images Mr Goyal tweeted were genuine images of India released by US space agency NASA. The trouble is, they did not portray the situation before and after Saturday's electrification of Manipur's Leisang village. The US space agency had released the first photograph in 2012. The second was released last year but is from 2016 and aims to highlight the patterns of human settlement."
Under the decisive leadership of PM @NarendraModi India has finally been able to electrify all its villages before the set target date. With the elimination of darkness from the lives of fellow Indian villagers, we commit ourselves to building a new and #PowerfulIndia pic.twitter.com/TJ8irmx4tk
— Piyush Goyal (@PiyushGoyal) April 29, 2018
Twitter users soon trolled him and contradicted the image.
The post attracted 900 replies and 2.9 K retweets within hours.
Satirist Akash Banerjee tweeted: "Congrats on this massive achievement Sir!But @PiyushGoyal, do ask ur Social Media team to double check the source & date of image used to showcase #PowerfulIndia Looks suspiciously as bright as the image #NASA released in 2012 -that was before India emerged from the dark ages."
Congrats on this massive achievement Sir!ðŸ‘
— Akash Banerjee (@akashbanerjee) April 29, 2018
But @PiyushGoyal, do ask ur Social Media team to double check the source & date of image used to showcase #PowerfulIndia
Looks suspiciously as bright as the image #NASA released in 2012 -that was before India emerged from the dark ages. pic.twitter.com/DAc4x7LAfZ
One Twitter user, who calls himself Amit Shah, tweeted: "#Hoax Piyush Goyal sir the pictures you posted are old..Pic1- Released by NASA in 2012Pic2- Released by NASA in 2016."
Another Pooja Gianchandanisaid: "NASA had long ago clarified that they haven't released any such pictures."
One Ansh said: "Uncle have u ever heard about photoshopped pictures ??"
Every Indian village now has electricty with electrification of Leisang village in Manipur, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said.
Modi on Sunday confirmed that one of the major election promises made by his party BJP before coming to power in 2014, that of reaching electricity to every village in India, has been achieved on Saturday.
Modi tweeted on Sunday as he confirmed the success of his government to countrymen.
Modi said Apr 28, 2018 will be remembered as a historic day as every single village in India are having access to electricity now.
He said lives of several people across the nation will be changed forever after his government fulfilled the promise it had made.
"28th April 2018 will be remembered as a historic day in the development journey of India. Yesterday, we fulfilled a commitment due to which the lives of several Indians will be transformed forever! I am delighted that every single village of India now has access to electricity," Modi tweeted.
Leisang village in Manipur was the last one to receive electricity on Saturday.
"Leisang village in Manipur, like the thousands of other villages across India has been powered and empowered! This news will make every Indian proud and delighted," Modi tweeted.
Already in India, a growing numbers of families in remote areas had started using solar energy or other non conventional sources to heat their homes, cook their meals and study at night.
Indian business daily Mint reported : "According to the government data, all of India’s 597,464 census villages have been electrified. This assumes importance given that at the onset of Rs75,893 crore DDUGJY for village electrification under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, there were 18,452 un-electrified census villages."
"During the project work it was found out that an additional 1275 villages also didn’t have electricity access. As of 28 April, all these villages have got electricity access either through the national grid or off grid solutions. Also, 1,236 villages are uninhabited and 35 have been notified as grazing reserves," read the news report.
“We are just absolutely thrilled, excited and delighted. We have fulfilled our mandate, our promise and the work allotted to us by the government and the honourable Prime Minister,” P.V. Ramesh, chairman and managing director, REC told Mint.
During his Aug 15 Independence Day speech in 2015, Modi had said his government will electrify all un-electrified villages within 1000 days.
The government made the move a year before the country is set to host the general elections.
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