As India faces an acute shortage of medical oxygen in the middle of the raging COVID-19 pandemic, various countries have come forward and have begun supplying cryogenic oxygen containers, oxygen concentrators, critical medicines to India to help fight the raging second wave of the coronavirus.
After the USA shipped medical supplies to India, a picture post started circulating on social media with a claim that the central government is returning the supplies because the packages were sent to States, not the Centre.
The text of the post reads, “अमेरिका ने भेजी मदद, मोदी सरकार ने उतारने तक नहीं दिया। अब वापस भेजने की तैयारी। क्योंकि यह सब केंद्र के लिए नहीं राज्यों के नाम लिखकर भेजी है।”
(Translation: America sent help, but Modi government is preparing to send it back because the packages had the name of states on them, not Centre)
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FACT CHECK
NewsMobile did a fact check and found that the claim in the post is false.
We put the picture through Reverse Image Search and found a tweet by the Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs, under the Finance Ministry of the Government of India. According to the tweet, the picture shows the import of 842 packets from Hong Kong by Indigo flight on April 30, 2021, which includes 300 oxygen concentrators.
With reference to news item, consignment shown in image was found to be import of 842 packets from Hong Kong by Indigo flight on 30.04.2021 which includes 300 oxygen concentrators & cleared by @Delhicustoms within hours. Any other pending COVID19 supplies may be brought to notice https://t.co/xv4hRne1gi
— CBIC (@cbic_india) May 3, 2021
Further, we ran a Google search to check if any consignments were returned to the USA by Government of India but could not find any report suggesting that the claim is true.
We also found pictures of medical supplies from the USA received by India on the Press Information Bureau’s Instagram page. The caption of the post read, “5th series of consignments carrying 545 #OxygenConcentrators from the US arrived in #India today morning.”
View this post on Instagram
Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi also put out multiple tweets to reinforce the strong Indo-US partnership. One such tweet is pasted here.
🇮🇳 🇺🇸
Going from strength to strength. US aircraft carrying an oxygen generating plant, over 2.8 lakh rapid testing kits and other medical supplies arrives in India. Deeply appreciate the strong support from 🇺🇸. Will further boost our oxygen capacities. pic.twitter.com/UGWUeyYDiN— Arindam Bagchi (@MEAIndia) May 5, 2021
Hence, based on the above information, it can be stated that no medical supplies have been returned to the US. Hence, the claim is fake.
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