Amit Shah Makes 3 claims on UP's Development, 2 Don't Check Out

"Modiji and Yogiji have done a lot for the welfare of the poor in UP. 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," Shah claimed.

FactChecker verified these claims against official data, and found that only one of them checked out completely.

Claim #1: "1.67 crore Gas Cylinders Were Provided"

Fact-check: The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY), 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 PMUY 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).

Claim #2: "2.61 crore toilets were built in the households of the poor"

Fact-check: The Centre had launched Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U) and Swachh Bharat Mission- Gramin (SBM-G) 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 SBM-G till February 7, 2022, said Minister of State for Jal Shakti Pralhad Singh Patel in the Lok Sabha on February 10, 2022.

When it comes to urban areas, Union Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri told the Lok Sabha in February 2022 that 62.64 lakh units of IHHLs have been constructed in the entire country under SBM-U 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 LS, where he said that 60.95 lakh IHHLs had been built in India and of these, 8.8 lakh were built in UP. And since then, the total toilets built in urban India has increased by 1.69 lakh.

Even if it is assumed that all 1.69 toilets were constructed in Uttar Pradesh, the total will still be 28.51 lakh fall 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.

Claim #3: "1.41 crore households got power first time since Independence"

Fact-check: The number of electricity connections in the state has increased by 1.45 crore (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 doesn't signify that all these households had no power since Independence as there weren't 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 6 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.