New Delhi: States and Union territories (UTs) have addressed only 3.7 percent of the over 9 lakh issues raised in 2023-24 in work done under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), according to the latest data on the Union Ministry of Rural Development portal.
Social audit units, which assessed the work done under MGNREGS by gram panchayats between April 2022 and March 2023, flagged issues ranging from funds misappropriation and violations in processing and implementing the scheme to grievances of MGNREGS workers, among others.
All states and UTs have set up social audit units under Section 17 of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005, to check corruption under the flagship rural employment scheme of the Centre. The social audit units share their assessments in the gram sabha, which has to “monitor the execution of the works with the gram panchayat”.
The rural development department is eventually responsible for addressing the issues raised by the social audit units and recovering any embezzled funds after detailed investigations.
The social audit units surveyed 73.04 percent of 2.69 lakh gram panchayats in the country, flagging 9,23,190 issues in MGNREGS work at 1.96 lakh gram panchayats. But, only 3.7 percent, i.e., 34,020 issues, have been addressed, as per the action taken report on social audit available on the rural development ministry’s portal for the scheme as on 9 April.
The social audit units covered over 95 percent of the gram panchayats in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Jammu and Kashmir, but less than 30 percent of the gram panchayats in Arunachal Pradesh (14.35 percent), Goa (0 percent), Haryana (10.68 percent), Jharkhand (6.34 percent), Maharashtra (27.52 percent), Meghalaya (28.38 percent), and Uttarakhand (25.09 percent).
In Andhra Pradesh, close to 41,000 issues were raised by social audit units, with just 9.37 percent (3,847) issues addressed. In Rajasthan, which has one of the highest numbers of households registered under the scheme, the state government addressed 7.8 percent issues.
When asked about the low percentage of issues addressed, a senior official with the Rajasthan government pointed out “delays in getting the compliance report on each of the issues raised in social audits”. “In cases of financial misappropriation, a detailed investigation has to be done before submitting the compliance report. Shortage of staff is another issue impacting social audits,” added the official.
Even in Kerala, where the audits are 100 percent done, the state government has addressed less than 50 percent of the issues.
According to a senior official with the Kerala government’s local self-government department, i.e., the implementing agency of MGNREGS, many issues arise due to the failure to present documents relating to the implementation of the scheme during the audit. “These issues are dropped after the compliance report is filed. But it takes time to complete the process,” said the official.
ThePrint reached the Union ministry of rural development via email. This report will be updated if and when a response is received.
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Task force for social audits
To strengthen social audits and extend the audits to other government schemes, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India and the rural development ministry have constituted a joint task force for “streamlining social audits”.
The joint task force will look into modifying the existing audit standards to apply them to other central government schemes under which social audit is mandatory.
The task force will be developing “norms for ensuring the financial, administrative and functional independence of social audit units”, “defining norms of fund allocation and fund releases to social audit units”, building minimum standards for training and capacity building of social audit resource persons, among other things, according to the task force’s terms of reference, which ThePrint has seen.
According to senior central government officials, the task force conducted a meeting with social audit units of a few states in March.
Social activist Nikhil Dey, co-founder of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, said, “When the social audit standards were formulated in 2014-15, it was only MGNREGS where social audit was mandatory. This is why the present standards are specific to MGNREGS. But now there are 10 or more things where social audit is mandatory, either through law or government orders, such as the food security Act and old age pension, among others.”
“There is a need to relook at the entire framework of social audit structure as social audit has become mandatory for other schemes. Also, there are several issues in the way social audits (under MGNREGS) are done — the recovery of funds and how directors of social audit units are appointed, among others. These have to be addressed,” added Dey.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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