Improving Social Audits

Improving Social Audits

Social Audit; Governance

News:

1. Institutionalisation of social audits for the implementation of MGNREGA has been a challenging task

Important Facts:

2. Social audits were introduced in 2005.
3. Due to government indifference and apathy social audits have been ineffective.
4. 26 countries have created Social Audit Units(SAUs) but the CAG’s detailed guidelines are yet to be implemented.
5. Due to ineffective social audits, other implementation challenges faced by schemes like MGNREGA and National Food Security have increased.
6. Telangana-an exception and a notable example:

• SAUs have organised regular social audits on NREGA since 2008.
• It is aligned with activists’ demands for transparency, participation and accountability.
• Frontline social auditors focused on individual workers’ grievances.
• The problem solving function of social audits helped local auditors understand the problems of the workers and help them better.
• It prevented individual grievances from getting stuck in a non existing corrective action system.
• This system shows the preventive role of social audits over the punitive role i.e., deterring corruption.
• The social audits have gone on uninterrupted despite the state’s bifurcation and change in governments.

7. Though social audits are not seen as grievance redressal platforms or means to deter corruption, a study conducted in partnership with The Society for Social Audit Accountability and Transparency (SSAAT-Telangana) showed that they do.
8. In the National Campaign Committee for Central Legislation on Construction Labour(NCCCL) petition on the implementation of the Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act,(BOCW Act) the Supreme Court asked the Ministry of Labour and Employment, State governments and the Union Territories to conduct a social audit of the BOCW Act.