Did Morbi Authority Spend ₹30 Crores For Modi's Visit After The Bridge Collapse? No, Viral Clip Is Fake

On October 30, 2022, the Morbi Bridge in Gujarat collapsed, killing 135 people, mostly women, children and the elderly. 224 people were rescued from the incident and were taken to the hospitals. On November 1, Prime Minister Narendra Modi went to Morbi, where he met the injured people. Meanwhile, a newspaper clip related to PM's Morbi visit is viral on social media. Citing an alleged RTI report, social media users claimed that the district administration spent Rs 30 crore on PM Modi's one day visit to Morbi after the bridge collapse.

A Twitter user posted this newspaper clip and wrote, "मोरबी के 135 मृतकों को मुआवजा 6 करोड़ 35 लाख, भाजपा के नरेंद्र मोदी की मोरबी विज़िट खर्च 30 करोड़। देशको ऐसे ही लूटने नही देंगे?? #Vote4Jhadu

[English Translation: 6 crore 35 lakh compensation to 135 dead of Morbi while BJP's Narendra Modi's visit to Morbi cost 30 crores. Won't let the country be looted like this?? #Vote4Jhadu]

Congress leader Kirti Azad shared this clip and wrote, "An RTI reveals that the Morbi authority spent ₹30 crore for Modi's one-day visit after the bridge collapse. In comparison to repair and maintenance of the bridge was only ₹2 crore."

TMC leader and RTI activist Saket Gokhale shared this RTI, which was posted by a Twitter user @DaxPatel and wrote, "RTI reveals that Modi's visit to Morbi for a few hours cost ₹30 cr. Of this, ₹ 5.5cr was purely for "welcome, event management, & photography". 135 victims who died got ₹4 lac ex-gratia each i.e. ₹5 cr. Just Modi's event management & PR costs more than life of 135 people". User Daxpatel said that the newspaper cutting is from Gujarat Samachar. He later deleted the tweet. Click here to see the archived version of his tweet.

Another user wrote, "An RTI reveals that the Morbi authority spent ₹30 Crore for Modi's one-day visit after the bridge collapse. 10 lakh for bridge repairs. 30 Cr for Modi's Photoshoot Event. No action on Oreva Owners. Shows priorities".

West Bengal Congress Sevadal shared this clip on their Facebook page and wrote, "An RTI reveals that Morbi Authority spent ₹30 crores Modi's one day visit after the bridge collapse."

It is being widely shared on Facebook with a similar claim.

Claim:

An RTI reveals that the Morbi authority spent ₹30 crores for Modi's one-day visit after the bridge collapse.

Fact Check:

The Logical Indian fact-check team verified the viral claim and found it false. The viral newspaper clip is fake.

During the initial investigation, we translated the screenshot of the viral news clip with the help of Google lens. According to it, Deepak Patel filed an RTI in the Morbi collector's office. In response to this RTI, the administration informed that Rs 30 crore was spent on PM Modi's visit to Morbi. The newspaper claims that eight crores were spent on painting, cleaning and new beds for the hospital where the injured were admitted. Eleven crores were spent on building new roads in Morbi, and three crores were spent on various government arrangements. The news clip further states that the police department spent Rs 2.5 crore on security arrangements, Rs 2 crore on event management and Rs 50 lakh on photography and videography to record PM Modi's visit.

Taking a hint from it, we searched for this news in Gujarati, English and Hindi. It is to be noted that the Morbi incident was horrific and covered by almost every media outlet. If such RTI information had come to the fore, news outlets would have covered it. However, we could not find any such media report which can corroborate the viral claim.

We then contacted Morbi District Magistrate GT Pandya, who denied the viral claim. While talking to The Logical Indian, he said that no such RTI was filed in the District Magistrate's office by someone named Deepak Patel.

Fact Check website Boom also contacted Gujarat Samachar, Ahmedabad bureau. Mukund Pandya, the chief reporter of the newspaper's Ahmedabad bureau, said the newspaper cutting was fake. He said, "We checked the news clip, and no such article has been published in any edition of Gujarat Samachar. Someone mischievously created the news clip and claimed it was a story published in our newspaper. This is not true."

We also found a tweet by the Fact Check wing of the Press Information Bureau dated December 1, denying the viral claim. The caption of the tweet reads, "Quoting an RTI, It is being claimed in a tweet that PM's visit to Morbi cost ₹30 cr. #PIBFactCheck. This claim is #Fake. No such RTI response has been given."

Meanwhile, on December 6, Gujarat police arrested Saket Gokhale from Jaipur over a complaint of spreading fake news about the PM's visit to Morbi.

It is evident from our investigation that the viral clip is fake. No such RTI was released related to expenses on PM Modi's Morbi visit. Gujarat Samachar, Ahmedabad bureau chief reporter Mukund Pandya also denied the viral claim.

If you have any news that you believe needs to be fact-checked, please email us at factcheck@thelogicalindian.com or WhatsApp at 6364000343.

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