Social Audit Immersion Clinic

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Social Audit Immersion Clinic

• Presentation made at World Bank, Washington DC
• By
• K.Raju
• Prl secy to Govt, RD dept
• Andhra Pradesh
• 23rd March 2009

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The Outline of the Session

• The objectives and methodology
• What is social auditing?
• An overview of social Auditing of NREGS in AP
• Step by step process details
• Institutionalizing and taking it to scale and the
  lessons

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The Objectives and methodolgy

• The objectives
• To understand social audit from the perspective
  of a practitioner
• To develop broad framework for social auditing of
  other poverty reduction programs

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The Objectives and methodolgy

• The Methodology
• Presentation on Social auditing of NREGS in AP
• Participants reflect on the AP case and
  articulate how they would facilitate social
  auditing for their program
• Challenges and how to address them

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What is Social Audit?

• Community is facilitated to
• Internalise their rights and entitlements
• Access relevant official records
• Compare with the actual position on the ground

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What is Social Audit?

• Community is facilitated to
• Analyse deviations/shortfalls if any
• Identify officials responsible
• Question the officials in a public forum
• Secure commitment from officials for corrective
  measures
• Follow up action monitored

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An overview of Social Auditing of NREGS in AP

• Started as pilot in a few villages 3 years back
• The ground covered in 3 years
• Social auditing in all villages in the state
• Institutional arrangements and human resource put
  in place
• Statutory Rules notified

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NREGA processes

• Job card
• Demand for work
• Identification of works
• Worksite management
• Payment of wages and material costs

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Social Auditing of NREGS in AP

• Districts covered 22
• Habitations covered 50,000
• Expenditure Audited Rs 2500 Cr
• Village Social Auditors trained 50,000
• Peoples reps who attended 30,000

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Social Auditing of NREGS in AP

• Wage seekers reached 25 lakhs
• Applications filed under RTI 1000
• Documents scrutinized 4 lakhs
• No. Of MLAs who have About 100
• attended SAs
• Amount Recovered Rs 2.50 cr

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How it happened in AP?

• Learning from the pilot Social Audits in the
  state
• Wide range of steps taken to institutionalise
  Social Auditing and to take it to scale
• This presentation is essentially about how it is
  done

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Social Auditing of NREGS process details
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NREGA, 2005- The Objectives

• Livelihood security to the households in rural
  areas
• 100 days of guaranteed wage employment to a
  family on demand as a Right

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Rights and entitlements

• Minimum wages on weekly or FN basis
• Equal wages for men and women
• Worksite facilities
• Medical expenses for injured/ex-gratia for
  deceased
• Unemployment allowance if work is not allotted

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NREGA processes

• Job card
• Demand for work
• Identification of works
• Worksite management
• Payment of wages and material costs

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Social Auditing of NREGS in Mandal

• Starts with filing of application with Mandal
  Development officer under RTI Act, for a set of
  NREGS documents
• Documents secured within 7 days

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Documents accessed

• List of job card holders
• List of works sanctioned
• Estimates of each work
• Muster rolls
• Pay orders
• Material payment vouchers

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Analysing the documents

• About 40 literate labour selected as village
  social auditors (VSAs)
• VSAs trained for 3 days on the process
• VSAs formed into 5 groups
• Each groups assisted to analyse the records of 4
  Gram pancayats

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Community is assisted to undertake social
auditing

• Each group of VSAs spends 3 days in each
  Grampanchayat
• Verification with each wage seeker
• Focused group discussions
• Inspection of works
• Recording of variations if any

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Gram Sabha convened to discuss the findings

• Findings discussed
• Corrective measures if any discussed and
  commitment from implementation agency taken

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Public hearing convened at the Mandal Hqrts

• Status of the Scheme presented
• The Mandal Social Audit team read out, strengths,
  weaknesses and important deviations
• Evidence adduced

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Public hearing convened at the Mandal Hqrts

• The officials respond
• Recovery of money misappropriated
• Commitment on the corrective measures secured

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How Social Auditing of NREGS is institutionalized
and taken to scale
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Policy support

• Policy support on the access to information
• To provide information in a way understandable
  people
• To delivery copies of documents if asked in 7
  days time
• To host Social Audit reports in web, in public
  domain
• Commit budget exclusively for social auditing

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Policy support

• Statutory Rules on the conduct of social audit
  notified
• Detailed Govt orders issued

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Institutional support

• An independent Unit set up at state level
• 44 State Resource persons and 440 District
  Resource persons comprising of activists from
  Civil Society Organisations inducted
• Training modules developed
• Digitisation of social audits arranged
• Web site to host Social audit reports

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Impact and learning from AP experience

• Deepening of peoples awareness on their rights
• Valuable input to improve Scheme design
• Deepening of social accountability
• Improvement in the grassroots governance

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Impact and learning from AP experience

• Social accountability in action-acts as great
  deterrent
• Prompt action on the findings is necessary to
  harness the power of the social auditing
• Social auditing is not about corruption or
  catching the corrupt. It is a process of opening
  of public dialogue in the society.

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THANK YOU