A claim is going viral on social media stating that ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) scientists who made the launch pad of Chandrayaan 3 have not been paid for the last three months. Users on social media are fiercely sharing this claim.
Tehseen Poonawalla, Political Analyst and Former Bigg Boss Contestant claimed during a podcast with YouTuber BeerBiceps that ISRO Scientist have not been paid for the last three months.
Not only this, but he also posted some screenshots of this claim on Twitter, published as news by several news websites such as CNBC and News18 to support his claim and wrote: “In the podcast with @BeerBicepsGuy I said it was scientists who worked on Chandrayan 3 were not paid salaries for 3 months. The fact was, it was, as per reports engineers who are also professionals! The context of my talk was non payment of salaries for professionals! The news articles for the same exist and the said media outlets stand by them”.
Apart from CNBC and News 18, other media outlets (the wire and Bharattimes) also published this news making similar claims.
Fact-Check
The Dfrac team had fact-checked this claim in the month of July.The link of the fact check is given below:
In this Fact-Check, the team mentioned the two news articles published by the ‘times of india’ which refute the above viral claim. According to the first news article,“Ranchi: Nearly 300 executives of Heavy Engineering Corporation withdrew their 150 days strike after PSU agreed to release two-month salary to both executives and workers and promised to take effective steps to release the balance of all outstanding salaries in future”.
Whereas the second news article reveals: “Heavy Engineering Corporations Ltd. (HEC) is not an official partner of ISRO but the company has played a significant role in delivering the launch pad of Chandrayaan 3”.
“In fact, before 2004-2005, ISRO used to import launch pads from abroad. In 2008, the then President APJ Abdul Kalam, was highly impressed at PSU’s capabilities and expertise in various fields. Later, HEC was awarded the contract to manufacture the mobile launch pad, horizontal sliding door, and tower crane among others by ISRO”.
Moreover, the Press Information Bureau (PIB Fact Check) Unit has recently fact checked Tehseen’s Poonawalla’s claim. The official account of PIB Fact-Check has shared a picture on Twitter, refuting the above claim and stating: This claim is #Fake, @isro scientists get their monthly salary on the last day of every month”.
Conclusion
Dfrac’s Fact-Check proves that the claim made by Tehseen Poonawalla during the podcast of Beerbiceps is completely Fake as PIB Fact Check Unit has recently debunked his claim but Dfrac had fact-checked the claim about a month ago.
