While addressing a rally in Uttar Pradesh’s Sitapur on February 21, Union Home Minister Amit Shah claimed that the state had seen unprecedented development in the number of gas cylinders offered, toilets made and households electrified under the Adityanath-led government.
“Modiji and Yogiji have done a lot for the welfare of the poor in UP,” Shah claimed. “They have provided free gas cylinders to 1.67 crore mothers, built toilets in 2.61 crore houses of the poor and provided electricity to 1.41 crore houses for the first time in 70 years of independence.”
FactChecker verified these claims against official data and found that only one of them checked out completely.
1. Claim on LPG
Fact-check: The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, launched on May 1, 2016, was aimed at providing 8 crore deposit-free LPG connections to poor households. This target was achieved in September 2019, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas Rameswar Teli told the Lok Sabha in December 2021. “Further, Ujjwala 2.0 was launched on August 10, 2021 to release 1 crore deposit-free LPG connections,” Teli added.
The data he presented showed that under the first phase of Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana 1.56 crore LPG connections were released. In the second phase, 13.14 lakh more had been issued in the state as of November 28, 2021, according to another response by Teli in the Lok Sabha in December 2021. This brings the total number of LPG connections to 1.7 crore. This means Shah’s claim checks out as this is more than the number he quoted (1.67 crore).
2. Claim on toilets
Fact-check: The Centre had launched Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban and Swachh Bharat Mission- Gramin on October 2, 2014 to build toilets for the poor in urban and rural areas.
In Uttar Pradesh’s rural areas, 2.22 crore individual household latrines had been constructed under Swachh Bharat Mission- Gramin till February 7, said Minister of State for Jal Shakti Pralhad Singh Patel in the Lok Sabha on February 10.
When it comes to urban areas, Union Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri told the Lok Sabha in February that 62.64 lakh units of individual household latrines have been constructed in the entire country under Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban since its inception in October 2014.
Owing to the lack of recent state-wise breakup for this data, FactChecker referred to Puri’s December 2019 response in Lok Sabha, where he said that 60.95 lakh individual household latrines had been built in India and of these, 8.8 lakh were built in Uttar Pradesh. And since then, the total number of toilets built in urban India has increased by 1.69 lakh.
Even if it is assumed that all 1.69 lakh toilets were constructed in Uttar Pradesh, the total will still be 28.51 lakh, falling short of what Amit Shah claimed.
While Shah claims that a high number of toilets were constructed in the state, tap water supply has just reached 13.36% of the state’s rural households, showed the Jal Jeevan Mission dashboard.
3. Claim on electricity
Fact-check: The number of electricity connections in the state has increased by 1.45 crore (from 1.42 crore in 2013-’14 to 2.87 crore in 2019-20) under the Narendra Modi-led central government, showed Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Limited records. But, this increase does not signify that all these households had no power since Independence as there were not as many households in the state then.
According to the 1951 Census, the population of Uttar Pradesh at the time was 6.32 crore. To calculate households, FactChecker referred to the Census’ definition, which read, “Almost exactly six persons to a house in towns and 11 persons for two houses in a village.”
If the population is divided based on six persons per household, we get an estimate that 1.05 crore households existed in the state then. This proves that the state did not have 1.41 crore households even four years after Independence.
FactChecker tried contacting Amit Shah via a phone call and email but received no response. This report will be updated as and when a report is received.
This article first appeared on FactChecker.in, a publication of the data-driven and public-interest journalism non-profit IndiaSpend.
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