On July 30, a Facebook page posted an alleged screengrab from an ABP News broadcast which stated that the price of petrol in Delhi had been slashed by Rs. 8.36. Users have been circulating the graphic showering praise on Arvind Kejriwal. It has also been claimed that the Delhi government reduced the 30% VAT rate to 16.75%, and the new price of diesel in Delhi now stands at Rs 73.64. The post amassed more than 2,500 likes at the time of writing. (Archive link)
A Facebook page called ‘Youth wing-punjab’ also shared the graphic.
Alt News received a request to investigate the image allegedly broadcasted by ABP News. In addition, we noticed that this screenshot was quite widespread on Facebook.
Fact-check
We performed a keyword search, which revealed that this news is from July 2020. One such report by DNA dated July 30, 2020, discussed the reduced prices of petrol and diesel in New Delhi. The price quoted in this report matches the recent claims being made on social media. The VAT rate is also stated as 6.75%.
ABP News also published a report covering this development on July 30, 2020. CM Arvind Kejriwal had announced the Delhi government’s plans to reduce the prices of diesel and petrol during a press conference. The still that appears after the 2:40 mark in the video below is now being shared online as recent.
To sum it up, the Delhi government has not announced any reductions in the prices of fuel recently. The price of petrol as of August 3 is Rs 101.84. Social media users are sharing screenshots that are a year old. We noticed that this screenshot was circulating back in July 2020 as well. This often occurs due to Facebook’s Memories feature that allows users to reshare posts from a year ago.
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