Fact Check: No scheme giving free sewing machines, viral claim is false

New Delhi (Vishvas News): A text message is circulating on social media with a claim that in order to make women self-reliant, the Central Government has launched the Pradhan Mantri Free Sewing Machine Scheme. Under this scheme, the Modi government is giving free sewing machines to the women of all the states. Vishvas News found that this message is fake. No such scheme is being run by the Modi government.

Claim :

A Facebook user Karnal Ki Pehchan shared this post and wrote in the caption, “The government has started the free sewing machine scheme to make the women of the country self-reliant. Women can get the benefit of this scheme by applying online. For this, you have to apply on the official website www.india.gov.in. After that take a print out of PDF and submit the form to the concerned office. After this, it will be given to the applicant by the government. #silaimachine #centralgovernment

The archive version of the post can be viewed by clicking here.

Investigation:

We searched Google through several keywords to check the authenticity of the claim. But we could not find any credible media report related to the viral claim.

Taking the investigation forward, we started scanning several government portals. But we were not able to find any information there either. We also checked the official social media accounts of Prime Minister Modi and the PMO, but we did not get any information related to any such scheme even there.

PIB had denied of such scheme in a tweet on 19 July 2022. According to the caption, no such scheme is being run by the government. Along with this, PIB was also advised not to share your personal information with anyone in this way.

We reached out to Shib Prasad, Media Coordinator, Department of Social Justice & Empowerment, for confirmation. He told us that the viral claim is false. No such scheme is being run by the government. Such posts are being shared on social media with a false claim to cheat people.

In the last step of investigation, we did a background check of the post sharing page Karnal Ki Pehchan. We found that the user has 130,946 followers on Facebook. This page has been active on Facebook since 3rd February 2020.