No, this is not a hospital being renovated in Odisha ahead of PM Modi’s visit

By: Rajini KG
June 6 2023

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Context
On June 3, Indian Prime Minister Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the spot of the tragic Odisha train accident that killed nearly 280 people and injured over a thousand. According to Hindustan Times, PM Modi visited the accident spot in Balasore district and oversaw the restoration work. Later, he visited a hospital in Cuttack in the east Indian state, where hundreds of injured victims were admitted. Following Modi's visit, a Twitter user Naveen N—who, according to his bio, works for the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party— posted two pictures and wrote: "On an account of PM's Arrival, renovation process in going on in a full swing at #Cuttack government hospital. Fate of the Nation #OdishaTrainAccident. (sic)." The first image shows two people standing on a stool and working on the roof of the building, and the second image shows people working on the floor of the building. The post garnered over 143.3K views and more than 580 likes.

In Fact
The images are old and unrelated to Modi's visit to Cuttack's hospital after the three-train collision in Odisha. Logically Facts examined the viral images and found that the text on the walls is in Gujarati. We magnified the image, and one of the texts read ‘Gynecological Ward’ in Gujarati (ગાયનેક વોર્ડ). This suggested that the hospital could be located in Gujarat.

Through a reverse image search, we found that the images are from a hospital in Morbi in Gujarat. Congress's official Twitter had posted the same pictures along with two other pictures from the same site on October 31, 2022. It mentions that renovation work like painting and installing tiles was done at Morbi Civil Hospital before PM Modi's visit. India Today also published images on November 1, 2022 and credited the Indian National Congress for the photo. The report states that after the Morbi bridge collapsed on October 30, 2022, killing more than 130 people, Modi visited the Morbi Civil Hospital to meet the victims, and before his visit, repair work was carried out at the hospital. According to a report in The Quint, the Prime Minister visited the hospital on November 1, 2022. Opposition parties Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had criticized the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and PM Modi for hurried renovations before the visit.

This confirms that the images are from Gujarat, not from Odisha.

The Verdict
Images taken before PM Modi's visit to Morbi Civil Hospital in Gujarat in November 2022 have been shared as visuals captured before his recent visit to a hospital in Cuttack, Odisha, after the train collision in Balasore. The images predate the train accident, and, therefore, the claim is false.