The news about the vegetable called hop shoots which is being cultivated by Amresh Singh in Aurangabad district and sold for ₹ 1 lakh per kilogram have reportedly emerged as false.
The story was first reported by The New Indian Express on February 3, and it went viral after Supriya Sahu, an IAS officer tweeted with two photos and quoted a news report, on March 31.
The tweet received over 24,000 likes and was retweeted over 5,000 times.
A team from Hindi newspaper Dainik Jagran visited Karamdeeh village in Naveen Nagar block in Aurangabad district of Bihar, the village of Amresh Singh, on Friday, and found that no such crop was being grown there. Local people said they had never heard of such a crop being grown in the area, according to the report.
When the Dainik Jagran team contacted him on phone, Mr Singh reportedly said the crop was being cultivated in Nalanda district, about 172 km away. When the newspaper team enquired in Nalanda, he said the crop is in Aurangabad.
As per Dainik Jagran’s verification, there is no Dr. Lal and the seeds of hop shoots are not available at the Indian Vegetable Research Institute at Varanasi, as is claimed in news reports, said Jagdish Singh, The Director of the Indian Vegetable Research Institute at Varanasi.
Saurabh Jorwal, District Magistrate of Aurangabad, told Dainik Jagran, “Some officials from Patna asked about the hop shoots crop. There is no such cultivation in Aurangabad district.”
According to Jagran, Amresh Singh has grown black rice and wheat in the past but not hop shoots.
PatnaBeats had published a story based on the report of The New Indian Express on February 10.
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