A post with an image of a TV screenshot is being shared on Facebook with a claim that Nirmala Sitharaman in her budget speech has said that the government distributed nearly thirty-five thousand crore LED bulbs. Let’s try to analyze the claim made in the post.
Claim: Nirmala Sitharaman in the Budget-2019 speech: “35,000 crore LED bulbs have been distributed”.
Fact: Nirmala Sitharaman said that the government under the UJALA scheme has distributed 35 crore LED bulbs, not 35000 crore LED bulbs. Hence the claim made in the post is FALSE.
The budget speech document of the Finance Minister can be found on the India Budget website. When searched for the words ‘LED bulb’ in the document, the info on the LED bulbs can be found in the 74th paragraph. The document reads, “Approximately 35 crore LED bulbs have been distributed under UJALA Yojana leading to cost saving of 18,341 crores annually.”
It is clear that it is 35 crore bulbs, not 35000 crore bulbs. But, the Finance Minister may have misread the document in her speech. To check that, her budget speech in the parliament can be seen on the PIB YouTube channel. In the video, she refers to the number of LED bulbs twice, at 1:05:40 and 1:06:07. Both times she said that the government distributed ’approximately 35 crore LED bulbs’. So, she did not misread the document and she clearly said ’35 crore bulbs’, not 35,000 crore bulbs.
Also, the LED’s Distribution Dashboard on the official website of UJALA shows the number to be around 35 crores.
To sum it up, Nirmala Sitharaman in her budget speech said 35 crore LED bulbs, not 35000 crore LED bulbs.
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