Marriage in India is a costly affair. Many poor families go into debts for wedding of their daughters as that involves dowry, marriage arrangements and gifts. A message on Facebook being virally shared promises to alleviate that burden. The message contains information about an organization which supports poor families for the marriage of their daughters with a financial support of Rs. 1 lakh. Many people are sharing that post to spread the message and help poor families. But, is this true? Let us check the authenticity of the message in the post.
Claim: Ladli Foundation supports poor families who cannot bear the burden of marriage expenses. The foundation will take care of the total cost of the wedding and will provide the bride with the basic things worth Rs. 1 lakh, to start a new family.
Fact: The message in the post is fake. Ladli Foundation only conducts mass marriage ceremonies for couples from poor families and provides basic things to start a new life. It does not support single marriage ceremonies as written in the message and does not give Rs. 1 lakh worth goods. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
When searched for the details of the marriage support on the Ladli Foundation Trust’s Facebook page, it is found that Ladli Foundation’s Founder Devendra Gupta has already denied the claim way back in 2015. He posted on the Ladli Foundation Trust’s Facebook page that their message has been edited and being falsely shared. He clarified that they do not give financial support to individual marriages but conduct mass marriage ceremonies, where basic things to start a new life are given to couples. He also appealed to people not to share the message and not call on the numbers given in the message.
Even after clarification, the message is being shared for the last 4 years. Some websites have also written some fact-check articles on this issue in 2017 and 2018. Also, ABP news ran a program on this issue and interviewed Devendra Gupta in 2017, which can be found posted on their Facebook wall.
To sum it up, Ladli Foundation does not support private individual marriages. They only conduct mass marriage ceremonies.
