The Sangai Express: Imphal: Monday, September 30, 2013.
Process ;
Social audit
should not be a programme of post mortem, which can hardly change what has
already been done. The process should be inbuilt in the project itself and it
should be carried out in such a way that it is preventive of the unethical
practices at the time of implementation of projects. It is necessary that
people and implementers are ready to go through the process of social audit
from the very outset. This mental preparedness is very important step and it
saves a lot of problem and bad blood later on.
The actual
process of social audit is not very complicated as in Charter Accountant/CAG
audit, but it is simple process of comparing targets and achievements based on
the public documents provided by the implementers. There are certain documents
and information normally made available by the project authority to the people.
Information
is of course power. The village resolution book is one such document. The term
project authority can mean the Panchayats, Gram sabha or its other committees
in addition to the departmental agencies, NGOs, welfare agencies, philanthropic
societies etc. Further, there should be some basic information facility too in
the villages.
The social
audit should also not be prescribed for individual schemes, but a continuing
process for the locality. It should not be one off process, but an ongoing
process, of course, with a pre determined periodicity. The willingness of the
people is important, it is to be ensured. So, adequate publicity is required.
Further, nowadays, the matters including the action taken report can be placed
in the public domain.
Institutional
mechanism ;
As the name
implies the, the social audit is to be conducted by the people and for the
people. The individual queries on programmes should not be taken as official
social audits. It is to be done outside the scope of the existing auditing
agencies. It is to be done by the people and they may or may not be guided by
the NGOs, but then it has to be structured in to an institution.
Otherwise, it
may end up in conflict with the implementing group. Nowadays, there are many
information seekers about the works carried out by the departments, but many of
the information seekers have the motive of blackmailing the project
implementing groups by using the information. Those individual approaches are
not social audits. The social audit should not end up in blackmailing somebody;
it should be actually course correcting exercise.
Hence, the
institutional mechanism for social audit is very important. It is right that
social audit can be done even under RTI. A few years back, in pre RTI era, the
social audit could have been a problem in India, but now the process is at
least legal and possible.
There are
mandatory disclosures or voluntary disclosures too in RTI, which are also
useful in social audit. Of course, more can be sought too. But then who should
be doing the social audit? In a highly sectarian society like the one we have
in this country, involvement of people en mass is going to be difficult.
In Manipur,
suppose a village chief is managing a programme, the social audit can also be
easily stage managed and no other citizen will be aware of it. So, they will
not be concerned of such initiatives. Secondly, the social audit forums which
have been attempted elsewhere with elected Panchayati Raj institution members
with Sarpanch (or equivalent nomenclatures in different parts of the country)
as chairman are also fraught with question of neutrality and fairness.
The Sarpanch
himself may always be under scrutiny, because the nexus between the local
elites and bureaucracy is notorious in India, Manipur is no different, rather
more serious. The third option possible was the NGOS and civil society
organizations, with their grass root connection, but they are also having
limited replicability and governmental legitimacy.
To come out
of the dilemma, the institutional mechanism has to be worked out meticulously
and in detail and we need to train citizens and organize them instead of
training social audit forums. The citizens are to have a minimum level of
education and a simple training in the process of social audit. Allowing more
citizens is important so that the deprived groups can muster their strength and
participate coming out from the shadow of dominant groups.
In addition,
the programmes and projects should also be designed in such a manner that
social audit is possible in various stages. Social audit has to look into
participatory planning, fund utilization and mobilization, beneficiary
selection, social aspect etc. and it should not end up as a report card. In
Manipur, the members are nominated by the Panchayats and the members are
neutral members.
Recently,
during my tour to Jiribam, I met the Chairman of a Social Audit, one Farizuddin
of Ahmedabad, not a panchayat member nor government employee. The committee has
five members. The Secretary of the audit committee is said to be an NGO member,
Secretary of a local club. Fair enough and sounds good. Main objective is the
justice and equity so that the social capital is fully mobilised for nation
building.
Participatory
Rural Appraisal and Social Audit ;
I feel that
the participatory management and its functional mechanisms suit the social
audit system. The Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) is an essential part of
participatory governance or management. The PRA is a good tool and can be a
solid precursor of social audit. In PRA, we get a good data from the
participants and members and beneficiaries directly which can form the basis of
the projects and baseline data for social audits.
The PRA
process makes the people involved in planning and implementation in true sense
of particpation and makes the process transparent. Transparency is a key word
in social audit. Through PRA, the development activity that is to be carried
out is made known to the people/beneficiaries and is kept on track right from
the day one. The persons nominated should be the persons who have participated
in the actual PRA of the locality. The PRA is conducted for many of the rural
development, watershed development and natural resource development programmes.
It is a
change that is required and welcomed. Initially, people at different levels
need training in addition to the citizen villagers. The Administrative Training
Institute, Mysore conducted a programme on Social Audit in 2010. It is told
that it was a good programme. The institute has the capacity for more such
programmes. The social audit is a simple process and an innovative one and
villagers can be easily trained to conduct such audits.
The states
can organize training programmes for villagers who can take part in social
audits. The gram sabha members and senior villagers can handle such audits. Who
should be nominated as members has been one issue, but the villagers can
nominate members from amongst themselves. The government can lay down
guidelines for such selections. The social audits not only shall ensure proper
implementation of village development programmes but also shall create social
fencings to protect the public assets, properties and natural resources.
It should be
given proper support and know how so that it does not fizzle out or end up in
tokenism that we are seeing many social empowerment programmes. There are some
grey areas such as whether the persons nominated can dedicate that much of time
free of cost, whether GP people implementing schemes, managing panchayat
activities can do all the work with a paltry sum, what is the stake of NGO
members etc. Nevertheless, it is a useful tool, which should be refined and put
to use on a larger scale.
Concluded
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