Engineers belonging to SC and OBC sections asked to work one hour extra in UP? Read Fact Check

A clip of popular Hindi newspaper Amar Ujala has gone viral on social media. The headline accompanying this clip says: “Engineers of SC and OBC sections will work one hour extra.” As soon as this clip began to be shared on social media, the users started a war of barbs.

A verified user by the name of Amit Kumar Mandal wrote on his wall with the newspaper cutting: “Well done! These people should be made to work 10 hours extra. Dalits and OBCs deserve this. If Dalits make more money anyhow, they go one step ahead of OBCs. Next year, the doors of Ram temple will open, they will have to go there too. I say they must book their tickets in advance otherwise booking will be over. Jai Hindu!”

Other social media users made similar comments while sharing the clip.

Fact Check: 

Since the viral cutting has Amar Ujala written on it, the DFRAC team searched keywords of its headline on Google. We found a news item on the website of Amar Ujala. It was published on September 23, 2001. It headline said: “UP: Engineers will work one hour extra. They demand that SCs and OBCs should also be appointed on the post of director.”

This report further says that the engineers belonging to SC and OBC met Power Minister Srikant Sharma to discuss improvement in the functioning of power firms. In this meeting, these engineers said that they would work one hour extra. Besides, the engineers urged the minister to appoint at least one SC and OBC engineer on the post of director. They also seek biased free selection for the posts of 20 directors. 

Conclusion: 

The DFRAC fact-check found that the viral newspaper cutting is more than one year old. Then, Srikant Sharma was UP’s Power Minister, and now he has been replaced by AK Sharma. The government had not asked SC and OBC engineers to work one hour extra, rather they themselves had proposed so. Hence, the claim made by social media users is fake.