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Look at the picture given above. Both these people who are receiving the award from President Draupadi Murmu are IAS officers. IAS Rishabh Gupta, wearing glasses, is the collector of Khandwa district of Madhya Pradesh and standing with him is IAS Nagarjuna Gowda, he is the CEO of Khandwa District Panchayat. Both IAS officers had received the National Water Award of Rs 2 crore from the President in November 2025. The award was given under the ‘Jal Shakti Abhiyan: Catch the Rain’, which aimed to promote water conservation, rain water harvesting and revitalization of traditional water sources. Khandwa district was on top in the country. As a result, the Collector and District Panchayat CEO were also honoured.

Recently, claims were made regarding this award that it was obtained through fraud. Have IAS Rishabh Gupta and IAS Nagarjuna Gowda made Khandwa a Jal Shakti Abhiyan by uploading pictures made from AI? Since Dainik Bhaskar’s one, people are sharing many pictures on social media and claiming that these have been created by AI and no work has been done on the ground. People are also demanding the removal of both the officers and it is being said that this is the biggest government loot of this year. Khandwa district administration has termed such claims on X as fake news and the administration has also given clarification. Khabargaon has also spoken to IAS Nagarjuna Gowda on the same matter.

What is the matter?

On 18 November 2025, the President honored IAS Rishabh Gupta of 2014 batch and IAS Nagarjuna B Gowda of 2019 batch at Vigyan Bhawan in Delhi. The award was given at the sixth National Water Awards ceremony. Actually, the Jal Shakti Ministry had started a campaign named Jal Sanchay Jan Bhagidari i.e. JSJB. This campaign was run at the district level. Its objective was to build water structures to save water, rain water harvesting and improve traditional sources of water. These water structures included works like repairing wells, improving pipelines, installing setups for rain water harvesting and every district had to upload photographs of these constructions on an online portal.

When the award was announced, it was told that Khandwa district had built the maximum number of 1 lakh 29 thousand 46 water structures in the country to save and conserve water, i.e. had done so much work and an award of Rs 2 crore was given for this, but more than a month after receiving this award, Bhaskar published a report and made serious allegations against the Khandwa District Collector and the District Panchayat CEO. It has been told in the report that the truth of the pictures uploaded on the portal and Khandwa got the award is something else on the ground. At some places a 2 feet pit has been declared as a well, at some places it is claimed that a bridge has been built but it has not actually been built and in some pictures it is claimed that they are not real but are made by AI. Dainik Bhaskar has written in its report, ‘Against 1.29 lakh works, the administration uploaded only 1714 photographs from the district, i.e. only 1.3% of the total works. The surprising thing is that even in this 1% evidence there is a huge discrepancy. When Dainik Bhaskar examined these photographs, it found that most of them did not have geo-tagging.

Apart from this, out of all the pictures of water harvesting, dozens of them have been created with Artificial Intelligence i.e. AI, even the watermark has not been removed. These allegations against IAS officers are serious. It is also claimed that at many places new boards have been pasted on already existing construction. People on social media are calling it the biggest government loot. Also know what Khandwa administration has to say on this. This clarification has been written from the account of Khandwa Collector while replying to several posts on Twitter. It has been said that the things being written on social media are fake news.

What did Nagarjuna Gowda say?

We then spoke to District Panchayat CEO Nagarjun B Gowda. He told Khabargaon that the portal whose pictures were shown by Bhaskar is a different portal, the award has not been received on the basis of this portal. He has sent us a clarification. According to this, the award was given for the Jal Sanchay Jan Bhagidari Abhiyan and a portal was created for it, but the Jal Sanchay Jan Bhagidari Abhiyan was completed 6 months ago on 31 May 2025, after which it is not possible to upload the photo. All the photographs are to National Water Mission’s Jal Shakti campaign Catch the Rain, which is different from Jal Sanchay Jan Bhagidari.

Apart from this, Nagarjuna Gowda says that after the publication of the report, investigation was done and a notice has also been sent by the administration regarding whatever shortcomings there are. In the clarification document, Khandwa administration has said that the news published by Dainik Bhaskar Digital (Bhaskar Investigation) has been done on the basis of complaints received in the public hearing. The administration also says that action has already been taken after investigation in these public hearing complaints. Regarding the news of Dainik Bhaskar, it has been written that this news is completely misleading, factless and has been done to tarnish the image of the district administration, this entire news has no connection with the award of Jal Sanchay Janbhagidari Abhiyan 1.0.

Apart from this, Nagarjuna Gowda told us that when the ‘Catch the Rain’ portal was investigated after Bhaskar’s report, 20 pictures were found to be AI generated, on which the district administration is taking action. That is, the administration says that the award has not been received on the basis of the photographs shown by Bhaskar or on that portal.

Madhya Pradesh Congress President Jitu Patwari has raised questions on the government on this matter. He has written, ‘While the BJP government should teach our children the good use of AI, it itself is doing corruption with AI. In Khandwa, BJP government officials converted two-foot pits into wells with AI in the name of water conservation and uploaded AI-generated pictures of various development works in the entire area on the portal. On the basis of these photographs, an award was also taken from the Honorable President. When the ground reality came to light, there were fields and empty fields. It is clear that this was not about water conservation, but a game of pictures made through technology. Corruption also became smart under BJP rule.

Who are IAS Rishabh Gupta and Nagarjuna B Gowda?

IAS Rishabh Gupta is a 2014 batch IAS officer and comes from Madhya Pradesh cadre. Before cracking UPSC, Rishabh was a software engineer. He had secured 37th rank in UPSC exam. His wife Bhavya Mittal is also an IAS officer of 2014 batch and is the Collector of Khargone.

If we talk about Nagarjun B Gowda, he is also an officer of Madhya Pradesh cadre. Became an IAS officer after passing UPSC in 2019. Before this he was a doctor, having done MBBS. At present he is the District Panchayat CEO of Khandwa.