Photos of Proposed New Delhi Railway Station Shared as Ayodhya

A video shared of the proposed railway station at Ayodhya looks very different from the viral photograph.

Fact-Check | An old photograph showing the proposed redevelopment work of the New Delhi Railway station has been shared by several people as that of the Ayodhya station.

(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

The photograph of a railway station has gone viral with a claim that it shows the proposed railway station being built in Ayodhya.

However, we found that the viral photograph showed the proposed redevelopment work of the New Delhi Railway Station.

CLAIM

Sharing the viral image, a social media user said, "ये स्टेशन अमेरिका चीन या जापान में नही है ये अयोध्या का स्टेशन है जो बहुत शीघ्र ही देश को समर्पित होगा. मोदी है तो मुमकिन है".

[Translation: This station is not in America, China or Japan, it is the station of Ayodhya, which will be dedicated to the country very soon. It has been possible because of PM Modi.]

An archive of the post can be found here.

(Photo: Facebook/Screenshot)

The same claim was used by several other social media users on Twitter and Facebook, archives of which can be found here, here, and here.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

When we conducted a reverse image search of the viral image on Google, we came across a news report in the Financial Express that carried the same image. The headline of the article was "Indian Railways plans big! New Delhi Railway Station redevelopment to be first-of-its-kind project; top facts"

A link to the story can be found here.

(Photo: Financial Express/Screenshot)

The story talked about the proposed redevelopment of Indian Railways New Delhi Railway Station.

Upon conducting a keyword search for the proposed New Delhi Railway station, we found several other news reports in Money Control, Business Standard, and Live Hindustan that carried the same viral image while talking about the New Delhi station.

We also came across a report published in UK-based news organisation, Daily Mail, which also carried the same viral image.

The article mentioned that a firm called Arup was given the contract for building the new station. We found the information on Arup's website as well, along with the viral photograph.

An archive of the post can be found here.

(Photo: Arup/Screenshot)

We also found that the photograph was used as the cover photograph for a document shared by the Ministry of Railways in December 2009. The file was titled, "INDIAN RAILWAYS VISION 2020" and was released by the then Minister of Railways, Mamata Banerjee.

WHAT ABOUT THE PROPOSED AYODHYA RAILWAY STATION?

We conducted a keyword search for the redevelopment of the Ayodhya railway station and found news stories talking about the same. A report in India Today said that station was supposed to be revamped to give it a temple-like look.

We found a 3D view of the proposed Ayodhya Railway station posted on the youTube channel of Ministry of Railways and it was very different from the image seen in the viral photograph.

Evidently, an old photograph showing the proposed redevelopment work of the New Delhi Railway station has been shared by several people as that of the Ayodhya station.

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