Context: Out of the 34 States and union territories only six have completed social audit of works done under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in more than 50% of gram panchayats.
More about findings
- Other than Kerala the only States to cross the 50% mark are Bihar (64.4%), Gujarat (58.8%), Jammu and Kashmir (64.1%), Odisha (60.42%) and Uttar Pradesh (54.97%).
- Only three States have covered 40% or more villages Telangana (40.5%), Himachal Pradesh (45.32%) and Andhra Pradesh (49.7%).
- The numbers are really low in Madhya Pradesh (1.73%), Mizoram (17.5%) Chhattisgarh (25.06%), and Rajasthan (34.74%).
- Kerala is the only State to cover 100% gram panchayats.
About social audit
- It is a way of measuring, understanding, reporting & ultimately improving an organization’s social & ethical performance i.e. it serves as an instrument for the measurement of social accountability of an organization.
- It is a process which allows end users to scrutinize the impact of developmental programs.
- It helps to narrow gaps between vision/goal and reality, between efficiency and effectiveness. It is a technique to understand, measure, verify, report on and to improve the social performance of the organization.
- The concept gained significance after the 73rd Amendment of the Constitution.
MGNREGA and Social Audit
- The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act provides for a central role to ‘Social Audits’ as a means of continuous public vigilance.
- Section 17 of the MGNREGA act says the gram sabha “shall monitor the execution of works”. Each State has social audit units which are supposed to work independent of the implementing authorities.
- The auditing standards laid down by the Comptroller and Auditor General, every Social Audit Unit is entitled to funds equivalent to 0.5% of the MGNREGA expenditure incurred by the State in the previous year.
- The audit involves quality checks of infrastructure created under the MGNREGA, financial misappropriation in wages, and checking for any procedural deviations.
- A process is to be conducted in every Gram Panchayat (GP) at least once in six months, involving a mandatory review of all aspects.
- Rule 4 of Audit of Schemes Rules, 2011 stipulates that each State Government shall identify or establish an independent organization, “Social Audit Unit” (SAU) to facilitate conduct of the Social Audit of MGNREGS works.
- This Social Audit Unit may be either a Society or a Directorate, independent of the implementing departments/agencies.
- The work may also be outsourced to an outside agency, preferably an NGO which is not involved in the planning and implementation of the Scheme but possesses adequate experience of having worked in rights and entitlement-based programmes.