MAIN MENU
The viral ‘12 years’ scorecard mixes real changes with mismatched baselines and attribution
Government-school counts fell, petrol later crossed ₹100, the rupee weakened and central liabilities rose during the period highlighted by the reel. But the viral scorecard mixes state-led school consolidation, an imprecise petrol baseline, subsidised versus non-subsidised LPG prices, exchange-rate movement and nominal debt as though they were one comparable measure of one leader’s performance; the underlying trends warrant scrutiny, but they do not establish one common cause or single arithmetic verdict.
Finding
The June 2026 “12 saal me kya kiya hai” reel is not simply false. Several changes it points to are real: India had about 94,000 fewer government schools in 2024-25 than in 2014-15, Delhi petrol later crossed ₹100 a litre, the rupee weakened substantially against the US dollar, and the Centre’s nominal liabilities rose to roughly ₹197 lakh crore by 31 March 2026.
But those facts do not add up automatically to one valid measure of a prime minister’s 12-year performance. The reel combines a state-driven change in school counts, retail fuel prices, two different LPG subsidy regimes, an exchange rate and nominal government debt as if they shared the same baseline, denominator, policy owner and causal mechanism. They do not.
The stronger public-interest issue is therefore how political scorecards can turn individually recognisable numbers into an over-simple causal story. The figures still warrant accountability; correcting their comparability does not make the underlying changes disappear.
What the reel claims
The initiating Instagram reel was posted on 10 June 2026 by @katariadaily with the caption “12 saal me kya kiya hai.” It says Narendra Modi had 80,000 government schools closed, petrol went from ₹65 to ₹100 a litre, LPG from about ₹400 to ₹1,000, the rupee deteriorated, and national debt rose from roughly ₹55 lakh crore to about ₹200 lakh crore. It then asks broadly about farmers and examination paper leaks.
The reel is political rhetoric built from factual propositions. Each proposition therefore needs to be tested separately before drawing a combined conclusion.
Government schools: a real decline, but not a personal closure count
NITI Aayog’s 2026 UDISE+ analysis reports that government schools fell from 11.07 lakh in 2014-15 to 10.13 lakh in 2024-25, a net decline of about 94,000. So the reel’s 80,000 figure is within the scale of the observed national reduction.
The attribution is much weaker than the number. NITI Aayog says the decline reflects consolidation and rationalisation undertaken by states. A net reduction in administrative school count is also not identical to evidence that one national political leader personally ordered that many individual campuses to shut. Mergers, reorganisations and under-enrolment rationalisation can change the count.
Petrol: ₹100 was real; ₹65 is an imprecise 2014 starting point
PPAC data show Delhi petrol at ₹72.26 per litre on 1 April 2014 and ₹71.41 on 16 April 2014. Prices around ₹65 occurred at other points, including in 2013 and later in 2014, but ₹65 is not a clean Delhi baseline for the change of government in May 2014.
The later ₹100 level is not invented. PPAC recorded Delhi petrol at ₹100.91 per litre on 11 July 2021. The reel therefore points to a genuine price increase while selecting an imprecise starting point.
LPG: the ₹400-to-₹1,000 comparison changes the pricing regime
In December 2013, a subsidised 14.2 kg domestic LPG cylinder in Delhi was ₹414, while the non-subsidised price was already ₹1,021. By June 2023, PPAC recorded the non-subsidised domestic cylinder at ₹1,103.
That means the reel’s apparent ₹400-to-₹1,000 rise is not a like-for-like retail-price series. It compares an earlier subsidised consumer price with a later non-subsidised price. This does not mean household LPG costs are irrelevant; it means subsidy design and eligibility are part of the explanation and must be shown for the comparison to be meaningful.
The rupee weakened, but an exchange rate is not a one-variable score
RBI historical data put the rupee at an average of roughly ₹60.5 per US dollar in 2013-14, while it was around ₹94.8 per dollar by the end of 2025-26. The direction claimed by the reel is therefore supported.
But a currency’s bilateral exchange rate reflects inflation differentials, oil prices, global dollar strength, trade conditions, capital flows, monetary policy and risk conditions among other factors. The depreciation is a fact; attributing the whole movement to one political actor requires evidence the reel does not provide.
Central liabilities rose sharply; nominal rupees are not the whole fiscal measure
The Economic Survey’s historical table gives central government total outstanding liabilities of about ₹56.69 lakh crore in 2013-14. The Union Budget 2026-27 Receipt Budget gives ₹197.18 lakh crore on 31 March 2026 for the headline total using external debt at historical exchange rates. It separately reports a broader adjusted measure of ₹200.53 lakh crore. The reel’s rough ₹55-to-₹200 lakh crore direction is therefore broadly supported in nominal rupees, subject to the definition used.
Nominal debt, however, grows alongside the nominal economy and prices. The government’s own 2026-27 fiscal framework therefore uses debt relative to GDP as an anchor and estimates central government debt at 56.1% of GDP in 2025-26. The same statement says the fiscal deficit declined from 6.7% of GDP in 2021-22 to 4.4% in 2025-26. Those figures do not negate the larger debt stock; they show why a raw rupee total alone is not a sufficient test of fiscal sustainability or performance.
Farmers and exam leaks are issues, not defined claims in this reel
The reel asks what happened to farmers and why examination papers leak, but gives no farm indicator, examination, institution, date, scale or causal proposition. Both are legitimate public-interest subjects, but the wording here is too broad to assign one factual verdict. A defensible assessment would need a specified outcome—such as farm income, crop prices, debt, a named examination or a measured incidence of leaks.
What the numbers collectively reveal
The reel identifies several developments that deserve scrutiny, but they operate at different levels. School-count changes involve state systems and administrative consolidation. Petrol and LPG require location, taxes and subsidy context. Exchange rates are macroeconomic prices with multiple domestic and global drivers. Public debt requires consistent definitions and an economic denominator.
The combined list therefore supports a narrower conclusion than its rhetoric suggests: several material indicators changed adversely or became more burdensome over parts of the period, but the reel does not establish one common mechanism, one comparable score, or sole responsibility for every change.
This distinction matters for democratic accountability. A government should be scrutinised for outcomes under its watch, but the scrutiny is stronger—not weaker—when baselines are comparable, responsibilities are correctly assigned and nominal totals are not treated as self-explanatory. The evidence here supports accountability for the underlying trends while rejecting a single-cause arithmetic verdict.
What this record does not establish
This record does not conclude that the school decline was harmless, that higher fuel costs had no household impact, that rupee depreciation is inconsequential, or that rising public debt is automatically sustainable. It also does not establish that Narendra Modi personally caused every change listed in the reel, or that the five indicators can be aggregated into one objective measure of government performance. Those stronger propositions require additional evidence and, in several cases, different metrics.
