A post accompanying a video clip featuring Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari saying, “I am going to bring a law under which a person sending a photograph of a wrongly parked vehicle will get Rs. 500 if the total fine works out to be Rs. 1,000,” is being widely shared across social media platforms with the claim that the government is offering Rs. 500 for sending photographs of wrongly parked vehicles. In this article, let’s fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: The government is giving Rs. 500 for sending photographs of wrongly parked vehicles.
Fact: There are no reports about the government offering Rs. 500 for submitting photographs of wrongly parked vehicles. This viral video shows comments made by Gadkari in jest during the inauguration ceremony of the Industrial Decarbonization Summit 2022 on 16 July 2022. After highlighting the context that wrong parking is a significant menace, Gadkari humorously stated, “I am going to bring a law under which a person sending a photograph of a wrongly parked vehicle will get Rs 500 if the total fine works out to be Rs 1,000. Then the problem of parking will be solved.” However, the minister’s comment is not supported by any legislative or legal framework as yet. The government has not made any rules concerning this. Hence, the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
To verify the accuracy of the viral claim, we conducted a relevant keyword search and found no reports about the government offering Rs. 500 for submitting photographs of wrongly parked vehicles.
To learn more about the viral video clip featuring Gadkari, we conducted a relevant keyword search on the internet and found the full-length video. It was uploaded on Nitin Gadkari’s official YouTube channel on 16 July 2022, with the title: “Inaugurating ‘Industrial Decarbonization Summit 2022’ (IDS-2022)”. Upon careful review of the entire video, we discovered that Gadkari made this comment seemingly in jest after laying out the context that wrong parking is a significant menace. However, the minister’s comment is not supported by any legislative or legal framework as yet. The government has not made any rules concerning this.
While speaking at this summit, Gadkari expressed concern about the escalating issue of wrong parking that is going unaddressed. He highlighted the significant increase in the number of vehicles in urban areas, sometimes reaching a point where there are cars for every family member and more. Gadkari emphasized that the problem lies in the lack of interest in establishing adequate parking spaces. Using his home in Nagpur as an example, he mentioned owning 12 parking spaces, ensuring none of his cars are ever parked on the roadside. He further said that Delhi residents are lucky people as we have made roads for parking their vehicles…Nobody makes parking spaces, most of them park their vehicles on the streets. He then humorously said “I am going to bring a law under which a person sending photograph of a wrongly parked vehicle will get Rs. 500 if the total fine works out to be Rs. 1,000. Then the problem of parking will be solved”. News reports about this summit can be found here, here, and here. Gadkari had previously made similar comments about wrong parking in the year 2017 (here and here).
To sum it up, this viral video shows comments made by Gadkari in jest; the government is not giving Rs. 500 for sending photographs of wrongly parked vehicles.
