Published 19:24 IST, May 11th 2020
Fact Check: Is there a proposal for a 30% deduction in government employees' salaries?
Fact Check: A media outlet claimed that a proposal for a 30 per cent salary cut for government employees is being considered by the government.
The Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, on Monday had a session with all the Chief Ministers of the states in India regarding further steps and policies for COVID-19. This session has not only brought news but also sparked some false reports and rumours. One such misleading report was shot down by the Press Information Bureau on Twitter.
Origin:
A media outlet claimed that there is a proposal of 30 % of salary getting cut from government employees has been put forth under consideration by the government. The report further claims that Grade-D and contractual staff will be exempted from this pay cut. The first reaction against this news recorded was from the Head of the Department of Personnel and Training, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievance and Pensions, Mr Jitendra Singh. He took to Twitter to share that a certain section of media is circulating fake news regarding the proposal. He also cleared out that no such proposal is presented by or to the government to have the deduction in salary of its employees.
The Press Information Bureau’s Fact Check account shared the same on their Twitter as well. They corrected the false claim and shared that there is no such proposal. Here is the tweet by PIB:
There has been no proposal for a salary cut for government employees by the government
The Ministry of Finance also added on to the list as they also tweeted about the issue. They also pointed out that the claim that there is a proposal to deduct government employees’ salaries is fake. Here is the tweet:
A similar incident had happened in the month of April when there was news circulated that there have been plans by the government for 20 per cent to be cut from the Central Government pensions. The Minister of Finance had cleared out the rumours, as claimed by a news source. It claimed then that the news is false and misleading.
Google Trends Analysis:
Many people took to Google to search for this piece of information. Google Trends analysis shows that around 2.50 PM, the searches reached its peak, but it came down almost gradually. People are also looking for the report and the news to check whether the news is correct.
Updated 19:24 IST, May 11th 2020