B. Rajsekhar Director, Society for Social Audit, Accountability and Transparency (SSAAT) Government of Andhra Pradesh December 17, 2009 Jaipur

 Commitment to transparency and accountability runs throughout the NREGA- flows from the Right to Information Act, 2005;  Onus of providing information is on the State to ensure transparency and accountability;  NREGA mandates that the RTI be followed in letter & spirit – proactive disclosure of information must be strictly complied with at all levels;

In context of this commitment to transparency the Go AP decided to invest its time and energy in the initial phases to create a Management Information System; Even as the Scheme was notified the MIS was put into place with the help of Tata Consultancy Services; All job cards were generated by the MIS at the Mandal (Block) level; Importantly – all payments are made through MIS – musters fed into system, pay-orders generated & money transferred into PO accounts of labourers

 IT provides efficient methodology for pro- active disclosure of info  Transaction-based IT architecture - Enable user-defined reports & analysis  Does all this mean – Accountability?  IT in conjunction with primary stakeholders monitoring

Leakages plugged / corruption reduced Rights & Entitlements of the labourers protected Labourers empowered Strong grievance redressal mechanisms with Social Audits Improved service delivery by implementing agency

Tardy Implementatio n of the NREGA Dilution / Corruption / Leakages Lack of grievance redressal mechanism / social audit Dilutions of rights and entitlements of the labourers Disempowermen t of labourers

 Innovative feature of NREGA – central role given to “Social Audits”;  Section 17 of Act mandates conduct of Social Audits  Basic objective - ensure public accountability in implementation of projects, laws & policies;  Entitlement for all stakeholders –participate decision making & validation continuous process of public vigilance;

 In AP it began as a project of the Strategies Performance Innovations Unit (Rural Development)  A pilot social audit conducted on the NFFWP in 3 villages with help of MKSS under reform action plan  Pilot Social Audits demonstrated the effectiveness of social audit process.

 A pilot SA of NREGS was undertaken in Nalgonda District Realization that unless a formal platform is provided for the community to ask questions no amount of publicity will bear fruit in NREGS-AP Insights of the pilot led to resolve that SA would be an important part of the NREGS-AP Decision to begin the process in three districts initially to evolve a roll-out strategy

 Pool of state officials sensitized to Social Audit created within the Department of RD  Pool of State Resource Persons created (#44)  Pool of District Resource Persons created for 22 Districts (#440)  More than Village Social Auditors trained

 Social Audit Tools developed Training modules/Training films/Step by step process for doing SA, Rules for SA passed by Assembly  Presently social audit is on in all the 22 EGS districts.  Society for Social Audit, Accountability and Transparency formed in May 2009

 Mandal is the administrative unit (Average 21 Panchayats) in which SA is done SA is done in all the panchayats over a 10 day period.  Starts with application filed under RTI for relevant records of EGS  SRPs &DRPS go into the villages and identify literate youth per habitation ) from labourer’s families  These are trained as VSAs  100 people (approximately) are formed into 9-10 teams

Each team does Social Audit in 2-3 gram panchayats Verification of figures on records with facts on ground Awareness building on rights and entitlements of the wage seekers Corrective measures are taken immediately On a pre notified date a social audit public meeting is held.

 Public, concerned officials, political representatives, media participate  Village wise SA findings are read out, public testifies, officials respond  Corrective action is taken.

 Access to Information and copies of office records  Cooperation at field level during a social audit  Senior officers from state and district are present during social audit report reading  Immediate corrective action is taken on the gaps and lapses  Administration does not interfere at any stage in the SA process

 Number of districts ongoing : 22  Number of Habitations covered : 50,000  Value of EGS works : Rs.3000 Crs  Number of village activists trained: 50,000  Number of MPDOs trained in SA: 600  Number of CSOs involved: >150  Wage seekers reached: 45 lakhs

 Applications filed under RTI: 1178  Documents scrutinized publicly: 50 lakh records  Elected Reps participated :  No. Of MLAs attended SA’s : 75  Amount Recovered voluntarily: Approximately Rs.4 crores

 One year after initiation SA is an accepted term  Some check on outright corruption  Wage-seekers have started applying for info under RTI  Analysis of SA data feeds back into policy level modifications  Other Depts. are actively exploring doing SA’s (Mid Day Meal Scheme, BC welfare, Technical Education, Health etc)

 About 1428 Field Assistants and 144 Technical Assistants dismissed  Criminal Action initiated on 203 people  10 Mandal Parishad Development Officers suspended  1171 Departmental Enquiries initiated

SSAAT’s role to facilitate Social Audits ◦ Constant bridge building between administration and civil society activists ◦ Certain non negotiable in the SA itself. Eg: Findings in SA will be compulsorily read out in the public meeting, holding of public meeting regardless of circumstances (like an election). ◦ Taken forward as a constructive exercise aimed at strengthening the program and not as a fault finding or witch hunting mission

DIRECTOR, SSAAT VILLAGE SOCIAL AUDITORS (4-5 Per Gram Panchayat) DISTRICT RESOURCE PERSONS ( 20* 22 = 440) DEPUTY DIRECTORS – (2 Members – Administration / M&E) NGOs STATE TEAM MONITORS (5 Members) STATE RESOURCE PERSONS (2 * 22 = 44) SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT SPECIALIST (1)

 GO No.431 – Guidelines on conduct of SA  Notification of NREGS-AP Conducting of Social Audit Rules 2008 ◦ Rules to establish SA as an open and inclusive M&E tool under NREGA ◦ SA as a means to increase transparency & accountability in administration

GO No.293 – Declaring NREGS as Public Utility Services for the purposes of settlement of cases under Chapter VI-A of the Legal Services Authority Act, 1987 GO No.153 – Financial Guidelines – earmarking 0.5% of the total NREGA funds for conduct of social auditing of NREGS. GO No.155 – Constitution of SSAAT GO No.171 – Creation of posts for social audit

 Exclusive web site for SA –  Link provided in NREGS website. All SA reports are now available in the public domain  SA reports in telugu are sent by post to GramIT Rural BPO at Ethakota, East Godavari District  Translated and put on the web-site by a dedicated team

 Setting up a Data Based Management System  Link the NREGS report to the Social Audit reports  Provide insights into the implementation of the scheme to plug loop holes  Generate reports to assess the performance of the implementing agencies

 Aug 20 th National Workshop on NREGA: A step towards governance reform, transparency and accountability  AP social audit process to be replicated in all the states