The Press Information Bureau's (PIB) fact-check handle tweeted on 15 May that a statement on 'inflation hurting rich more than poor in 2022' was being misattributed to the Ministry of Finance.
Labelling the post as 'fake news,' PIB said that the finance ministry “has not given such statement (sic).”
However, this 'fact-check' overlooks the fact that the Monthly Economic Review (MER) for April 2022 makes this assertion. MER is published by the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) in the Ministry of Finance.
The document notes, "Evidence on consumption patterns further suggests that inflation in India has a lesser impact on low-income strata than on high-income groups."
CLAIM
The Press Information Bureau’s verified Twitter account shared this graphic card of the statement, which carried a photograph of Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and rubbished the claim.
The statement was also retweeted by the Ministry of Finance’s Twitter account.
(Note: Swipe right to view both images.)
An archive of this post can be seen here.
(Source: Twitter/Screenshot)
News organisations Business Standard and OneIndia also carried reports based on PIB’s fact-check.
WHAT WE FOUND
We looked up the statement and came across a news report by Moneycontrol, published on 15 May.
The article discussed the state of inflation in the country while exploring the Department of Economic Affairs’ (DEA) latest monthly economic review report.
It said that the ministry’s officials wrote that “the poor were hurt less by higher prices in FY22,” when compared to the rich.
Next, we looked at the DEA’s economic review for April 2022. On the third page of this report, a line read, “Evidence on consumption patterns further suggests that inflation in India has a lesser impact on low-income strata than on high-income groups.”
In other words, the report said, inflation had less impact on the poor than the rich.
The same was also pointed out by several journalists on Twitter. Finance journalist Manojit Saha and Hindustan Times’ Associate Editor Zia Haq also quote-tweeted the fact-check, citing the DEA report.
While the Finance Ministry did not issue the statement verbatim, it said in a report that those from the “low-income strata” were less impacted by inflation that those belonging to “high-income groups.”
Clearly, PIB's tweet calling it 'fake news' is misleading.
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