Social Audit Immersion Clinic

Presentation made at World Bank, Washington DCBy

K.RajuPrl secy to Govt, RD dept

Andhra Pradesh23rd March 2009

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

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

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

What is Social Audit?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

What is Social Audit?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

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

NREGA processesNREGA processes

Job card

Demand for work

Identification of works

Worksite management

Payment of wages and material costs

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

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 100attended SAs

Amount Recovered : Rs 2.50 cr

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

Social Auditing of NREGS – process details

NREGA, 2005- The ObjectivesNREGA, 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

Rights and entitlementsRights 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

NREGA processesNREGA processes

Job card

Demand for work

Identification of works

Worksite management

Payment of wages and material costs

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

Documents accessed Documents accessed

List of job card holders

List of works sanctioned

Estimates of each work

Muster rolls

Pay orders

Material payment vouchers

Analysing the documents 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

Community is assisted to Community is assisted to undertake social auditing 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

Gram Sabha convened to discuss Gram Sabha convened to discuss the findings the findings

Findings discussed

Corrective measures if any

discussed and commitment

from implementation agency

taken

Public hearing convened at the Public hearing convened at the Mandal Hqrts Mandal Hqrts

Status of the Scheme presented

The Mandal Social Audit team read

out, strengths, weaknesses and

important deviations

Evidence adduced

Public hearing convened at the Public hearing convened at the Mandal Hqrts Mandal Hqrts

The officials respond

Recovery of money

misappropriated

Commitment on the corrective

measures secured

How Social Auditing of NREGS is institutionalized and taken to scale

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

Policy support

Statutory Rules on the conduct

of social audit notified

Detailed Govt orders issued

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

Impact and learning from AP experience

Deepening of people’s awareness on

their rights

Valuable input to improve Scheme

design

Deepening of social accountability

Improvement in the grassroots

governance

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.

THANK YOU