Aam Aadmi Party’s Atishi Marlena passed off a foreign country’s sewer treatment plant image as that of Delhi’s Okhla. Earlier this week, Marlena had posted an image on photo-sharing website Instagram juxtaposing the Statue of Unity next to a sewer treatment plant. She had titled the post, “Vision and priority matters.”
Marlena posted how World’s largest statue, the Statue of Unity in Gujarat cost Rs 3,500 crore while India’s largest sewer treatment plant in Okhla, Delhi came up in Rs 1,161 crore. She even preached that when 50% of the country is facing water crisis, water related issued need to be addressed before statues.
However, according to the fact-checking website fact-hunt, the image Marlena has shared is most probably from California.
Passing off foreign location’s sewer treatment plant image as Okhla in Delhi is not the misleading part about the post.
The statue of Unity was constructed at an approximate cost of Rs 2,989 crore and not Rs 3,500 crore as claimed by Marlena. Secondly and more importantly, as fact hunt points out, the sewer treatment plant in Okhla is yet to be constructed. Its foundation stone was laid on 8th July 2019 by Union Minister for Jal Shakti Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
Marlena did not think it was a good idea to put up a disclaimer that the image of ‘sewer treatment plant in Okhla, Delhi’ is a representational image. And that construction is yet to begin. Also that the project is expected to be operational by 2022. Marlena also did not mention the fact that the Okhla sewage treatment plant is 85% funded by the central government.
This is not the first time Aam Aadmi Party leaders have shared images of foreign locations and tried to pass them off as Delhi. In November 2018, Aam Aadmi Party tried to pass off an image of the illuminated Erasmus Bridge in Rotterdam as the yet-to-be inaugurated Signature Bridge in Delhi.
Update: Facthunt has updated that the above image may not necessarily be from California as it is extensively used as a representational image of sewage water treatment plant. California is known for its water conservation technologies. However, it cannot be conclusively proven that the representational image is also from California. The article has been updated to reflect this information.
Having said that, it is definitely not from Okhla, New Delhi as depicted in Atishi Marlena’s Instagram post.
