At least 20 teachers, including the District Education Officer (DEO) have been served notices in Madhya Pradesh’s Khandwa for allegedly uploading AI-generated images as part of a water conservation project after the Congress alleged that the district administration won a national award based on fake images.
On Monday (December 29, 2025), State Congress president Jitu Patwari alleged corruption by the Madhya Pradesh Government and uploading artificial intelligence-generated images on a government portal to secure an awards at the hand of President Droupadi Murmu.
Khandwa district administration, however, has rejected the allegations saying that the AI-generated images were uploaded on a portal that has nothing to do with the award. The district had secured first place nationwide for outstanding work in water conservation under the Centre’s ‘Jal Sanchay, Jan Bhagidari (JSJB)’ campaign. Collector Rishav Gupta and Jila Panchayat CEO Nagarjun B Gowda had received a ₹2 crore award for the district by Ms. Murmu at the sixth National Water Awards ceremony held in New Delhi on November 18.
“Where the BJP government should teach our children the proper use of AI, it is itself indulging in corruption using AI. In Khandwa, officials of the BJP government turned two-foot-deep pits into wells using AI, and uploaded AI-generated images of various development works across the area on the portal. Based on these images, they even took an award from the President,” Mr. Patwari said in an X post.
“When the ground reality came to light, fields and empty grounds were found there. Clearly, this was not water conservation, but a game of technology-created images,” he claimed, alleging that even corruption had become “smart under the BJP government”.
Speaking to The Hindu, Mr. Gowda denied the charges and said that the portal where some AI-generated images were uploaded and the portal where the administration had uploaded pictures and details of the rain water harvesting systems constructed across the district were different. The administration won the award for building more than 1.29 lakh such systems and it is not given based on just pictures, he added.
“The pictures and details like location of the government’s work as part of the campaign are uploaded on the JSJB portal of the Union Ministry of Jal Shakti after multiple rounds of scrutiny. Officials physically verify each work and only the district administration can access this portal,” Mr. Gowda said, adding that the work is also verified by the State authorities before it is submitted to the Union Government.
“In June, a team from the Ministry of Jal Shakti had conducted physical verification of more than 1,500 random sites. The award was declared after all the scrutiny,” he added.
The CEO also said that the JSJB portal was closed about six months ago and the AI-generated images were posted on the Catch the Rain (CTR) portal in October ago for information, education and campaign (IEC) purposes.
“To promote rain water harvesting, all government employees and public representatives had been advised to install harvesting systems at their houses. Some teachers who did not install the systems uploaded fake images on the CTR portal to show the work. The pictures on the internet are from that portal which has nothing to do with the JSJB campaign and government works,” Mr. Gowda said, adding that the DEO has been issued a notice as the fake images were uploaded using login credentials of his office.
Mr. Gowda said that responses have been sought from all 20 people and further action will be taken based on that.
Published – December 31, 2025 02:37 am IST
