Why in News ?

Jharkhand government claim the Social Audit Team For NREGA also the first such move by any state, the Rural Development Ministry has started capturing work demand under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) through its social audit unit (SAU).

• Aims at generating nearly 6 lakh demands for work in around a month since the system began in mid-August.

What is Social Audit Unit (SAU) ?

• Social Audit is the assessment of programme/scheme conducted with the involvement of people and comparing official records with actual ground realities..
  • Social Audit is different from Financial Audit.
  • At the same time Financial audits involve inspecting and assessing documents related to financial transactions in an organisation to provide a true picture of its profits, losses and financial stability.
• Social Audit is a powerful tool for social transformation, community participation and government accountability.
• Section 17 of the MGNREGA has mandated Social audit of all Works executed under the MGNREGA.
• It mainly focus on the objectives completed under the a particular programme or scheme.
  • In short it is a fact finding process of the programme by verifying the facts available in the records.

About Jharkhand Social Audit Team For NREGA

• SAU state during the period in the last three financial years, around 2 lakh person days of work was generated under MGNREGA
  • This shows a representative from each household is eligible to get 100 days of work each year.
• SAU personnel doing social audit of work already done and those underway can get more people to demand work than Rozgar Sewaks.
  • Earlier work through ‘Rozgaar Sewaks’ where one in each panchayat of the state who would go village to village and raise awareness about the concept of MGNREGA, get demands for work, sanction the schemes, and finally make the payments.
• Within 15-20 days nearly 6 lakh people demanded work under MGNREGA.

Source : Indian Express

Topic

GS II : Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation

Current Affairs Compilation : 18 September 2020