Congress claims national water award won by MP’s Khandwa with AI-images; administration rejects charge

As the controversy over the allegations linked to the National Water Award escalated, the Khandwa administration held a press conference to clarify its position.District Panchayat Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Nagarjun B Gowda said that uploading AI-generated images had no connection whatsoever with the National Water Award.He said “verified images after thorough scrutiny” of 1,29,046 works carried out under the ‘Jal Sanchay, Jan Bhagidari’ campaign were uploaded on the campaign’s JSJB portal.Gowda said the Union Jal Shakti Ministry verified all these images and conducted random field inspections of one per cent of the total works.”Prima facie, false news about water conservation works carried out in Khandwa district is being spread by some social media accounts,” he added.He said photographs related to water conservation are uploaded on another portal named ‘Catch the Rain’ only for educational and motivational purposes.”The district administration has found that 21 images generated through AI were uploaded on the Catch the Rain portal. This was possibly done with malicious intent.The district administration is taking action against those who uploaded these images,” the CEO added.”The Catch the Rain portal is completely different from the Jal Sanchay, Jan Bhagidari campaign portal. Awards under the Jal Sanchay, Jan Bhagidari campaign are not considered based on images uploaded on the Catch the Rain portal,” Gowda added.More than 1.25 lakh water conservation works were carried out in Khandwa district under the ‘Jal Sanchay, Jan Bhagidari’ campaign, the highest in the country, he added.



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