On 13th September 2019, a Facebook page called “Indore News – IMJ” posted a video, captioned “Shree Onkareshwar Jyotirling ke Indira Saagar Baandh pariyojana se Maa Narmada Je ka vikaraal svarup. Narmadehar”.
In this video we can see the opening of a dam. This video is being circulated on social media claiming that it is the Onkareshwar Jyotirling’s Indira Sagar Dam is located in Madhya Pradesh, whose gates have been opened. By the time the fact check was done, this post had received 230 responses.
The beginning of the investigation, we broke this video into small key frames using the InVid tool and Yandex Reverse Image Search. As a result, we found a video published on 4th August 2018 , titled “KRS DAM is going to remove excess water due to increase in water level, see KRS Dam’s opened gate”
After that we searched the news related to this video using keywords like “KRS gates open”, from the result we found a news article published by The Hindu on 14 July 2018, in which we can also see a picture of a dam similar to the viral video. The caption of this picture reads, “Karnataka: Hassan: 14/7/2018 top gates of Hemavati reservoir were opened on Saturday. To witness this incident, many people visited the dam site. Photographer: Prakash Hasan”
After this we found pictures of KRS dam on Google Maps, from the result we came to know that KRS dam and the dam shown in the viral video is different. You can see comparison of pictures of both dams below.
After this, we did a Google search through keywords like “Hemavati Reservoir Gorur Dam”, as a result of which we found a video uploaded on 11 August 2019, which says “Gorur Dam is Filled”.
After this, we found the words like “Hemavati Reservoir Gorur” on Google Maps. From the results, we found the dam shown in the video, the structure of the dam; the railing and the lamps were exactly as shown in the viral video in the name of Indira Sagar Dam. You can see the comparison of the pictures of both places below, from which we understand that the viral video shows the Gorur Dam in Karnataka.
Street view of Gorur Dam in Karnataka is also available on Google Maps, which you can see below.
Pictures of the Gorur dam can also be seen on the official government website of Hassan district of Karnataka along with the mention that this dam has been constructed across the Hemavati River, an important tributary of Cauvery. This dam was built in 1979 in Gorur area.
We then contacted Venkatakaramana C.M., the Assistant Engineer of the project of the Gorur Dam; he told us that “this video is from the Gorur Dam in Hassan district of Karnataka. It is not the Indira Sagar Dam in Madhya Pradesh.”
Conclusion: After fact-checking, we found the above post to be incorrect. The dam depicted in the video is actually the Gorur Dam located in Karnataka which is being spread on social media in the name of Omkareshwar Jyotirling’s Indira Sagar Dam in Madhya Pradesh.
Title:The video of the Gorur Dam in Karnataka is being circulated as the video of the Indira Sagar Dam in Madhya Pradesh.
Fact Check By: Ruchika MResult: False
