Fact Check: Did UP have just 12 medical colleges till 2017, as Modi and Adityanath claim?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while launching multiple development projects in Varanasi on July 15, claimed that Uttar Pradesh had 12 medical colleges till four years ago or before the current Bharatiya Janata Party government came into power in the state. He also said that this number has increased four-fold now.

“Today UP is witnessing unprecedented improvement in medical infrastructure, be it village health centres, medical colleges or AIIMS [All India Institute Of Medical Science],” said Modi at the inaugural ceremony of projects worth around Rs 744 crore, including nine medical colleges. “Till four years ago, where there used to be a dozen medical colleges in UP, their number has now increased almost four times. Many medical colleges are in different stages of construction.”

He also inaugurated many public projects and works, including a 100-bed maternal child health wing in Banaras Hindu University, multi-level parking at Godauliya, ro-ro vessels for tourism development on river Ganga and a three-lane flyover bridge on the Varanasi Ghazipur Highway.

But Modi is not the first one to make such a claim. This statement has been made by several officials in the UP government during the past few months and has been published as facts.

Around 10 days before this statement, the Times of India had written about…

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