Social audit of MGNREGS to be conducted twice a year

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Bhubaneswar: The first governing body meeting of Odisha Society for Social Audit Accountability and Transparency (OSSAAT) her Tuesday decided to carry out social audit of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Generation Scheme (MGNREGS) twice a year.
The meeting held under the chairmanship of chief secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi comes six years after OSSAAT was constituted in 2012 to carry out social audit of developmental programmes in the state.
It was decided at the meeting that OSSAAT would be vested with sufficient autonomy and would operate independently of the government for making the social audit meaningful and effective.
Panchayati Raj secretary, DK Singh, said that the main objective of OSSAAT was to create an enabling environment for the gram sabha and palli sabha to conduct impartial and effective social audit for the development schemes and programmes in its territory.
Reviewing the new structure, mandate and activities of the society, Padhi asked various departments to get their social audit done through OSSAAT.
It was decided that social audit of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Generation Scheme (MGNREGS) would be done twice a year.
Padhi further directed to conduct social audit of other programmes like Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), rural housing, livelihood mission and construction workers welfare fund among several others as per the prescribed time period in respective projects.
The governing body of OSSAAT has been formed under the chairmanship of chief secretary Padhi and includes members from various government departments, NGOs, academicians and audit experts.
The executive committee has been formed under the chairmanship of principal secretary of Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water.
The society has been housed at State Institute of Rural Development (SIRD) here in the city.
Presently, Binaya Kishore Das, has been appointed as the full time director. Das is assisted by independent social audit experts (SAEs) and accounts officers (AOs).
At the district level, independent district social auditors have been engaged while block social auditors have been selected from the local civil society. At village level, the members from self help groups (SHGs) have been involved as village resource persons.
Director, special projects, SN Girish, said, “During the year 2017-18, OSSAAT has expanded its social audit activities to all districts of the state. Out of 6,801 GPs, so far, social audit of MGNREGS has been completed in 5,984 GPs.”