SOCIAL Audit Society of Tamil Nadu SASTA ESTABLISHMENT

SOCIAL Audit Society of Tamil Nadu (SASTA)

ESTABLISHMENT • G. O. No. 64 dated 27. 7. 2012 - Social Audit Society of Tamil Nadu established • Director, 2 JDs and 1 AD appointed from RD & PR Deptt. , • G. O. No. 125 dated 21. 12. 2012 – Approval of bye-laws for SASTA • 09. 01. 2013 – Registration of the Society

1 st Governing Body Meeting (Feb. 2013) Important items in Agenda: • Creation of Additional office staff • Budget for 2013 -14 • Process for hiring DRPs & BRPs • Training plan • Selection of NGOs for imparting Training • Revised pay structure for contract staff • Pattern for conduct of Social Audit

RECRUITMENT OF STAFF • 3 SLMs, Office Staff and 1 SAS appointed • Committee appointed by Governing Body to monitor recruitment process • T. N. Transparency in Tender Rules, 2000 followed • National-level newspaper advertisements, inviting H. R. agencies to apply for recruitment of staff • T&M Services consulting Pvt Ltd, Mumbai, appointed as HR agency • For DRP, BRP and supporting staff, 12, 984 applications including retired staff were received • Written test in 9 centres for fresh applicants – retired exempted from written tests • Interview for DRP in Chennai and BRP in 5 centres

TRAINING & CAPACITY BUILDING ON SOCIAL AUDIT • 4 To. Ts organised for APOs, BDOs and External Resource Persons • Village Panchayat Presidents (12, 524) and Village Panchayat Secretaries (12, 524) sensitised through one day programmes • RD&PR officials (11, 660) imparted orientation training • 5 days intensive training for District Resource Persons • 5 days intensive training for Block Resource Persons • 1 lakh PRI elected representatives sensitised through 5 RIRDs

EMPANELMENT OF NGOS • NGOs as Training & Support Organisations • Committee set up to superintend empanelment of NGOs • T. N. Transparency in Tender Rules, 2000 followed • Expression of Interest released in newspapers followed by Technical bid • To train 1, 000 Village Panchayat Ward Members and 62, 620 Village Panchayat Resource Persons and to assemble primary stake-holders at worksites and educate them on their Rights & Entitlements • However, 2 nd Governing Body resolved to entrust the training with 5 RIRDs and training is in progress

SOCIAL AUDIT IS: 1. Education – an IEC tool 2. Accountability – a transparency tool – a grievance redressal tool – a corruption deterrent tool 3. Mobilization – a participation promotion tool – a gram sabha strengthening tool – an empowerment tool – A Social Justice tool 4. Feedback – Is a tool to give valuable inputs to implementing agency about systemic issues

CONDUCT OF SOCIAL AUDITS • 19 Model Social Audits (one Village Panchayat each in 19 districts at random) conducted initially (prior to staff recruitment) • 1, 000 Social Audits conducted from November 2014 • Around 25 -50 workers selected at Block level – Minimum educational qualification: 8 th std – worked at least 25 days in MGNREGA in the last Financial Year • Selected Village Social Audit Facilitators are given intensive training at the Block office on Registers, Records, Online data, Records Verification, Field Evaluation, Report Preparation and Presentation

SOCIAL AUDIT PROCESS I. Pre Audit : • Day 1 – Create awareness on Social Audit & Recruit Village Social Audit Facilitators in MGNREGS worksites and habitations • Day 2 – Assemble the people interested in becoming facilitators for a classroom session on MGNREGS & Social Audit followed by a simple screening test and finally select 5 VSAFs per Panchayat • Day 3 – Training for the selected VSAFs

SOCIAL AUDIT PROCESS II. Conduct of Audit: • Day 1: Collection of records & Verification. Habitation meetings for awareness • Days 2 & 3: Household visits with muster rolls and online data on days worked and wages earned – verification of job cards and interaction with MGNREGS workers • Day 4: Worksite visit and verification of quantity & quality of works • Day 5: Compilation of findings and preparation of Social Audit report • Day 6: Conduct of Social Audit Gram Sabha – Presentation of report, discussions, testimonies, official response and a Grama Sabha resolution

MAJOR FINDINGS OF SOCIAL AUDIT Voice of the people: • Low wages • Inability to get work when they need it • Delayed wage payment • Issues with bank payments • Worksite facilities not provided • Not able to get job cards • Old people, women with children discouraged • No grievance redressal system

MAJOR FINDINGS OF SOCIAL AUDIT CONTD… • Poor quality of work and poor asset creation – poor planning, poor selection of works & poor monitoring. Quantity not commensurate with the wages disbursed • Registers not maintained properly/no updations • Incomplete and wrong data in mgnrega. nic. in • Significant fake entries & overwriting in Job Cards, NMR, etc. , • Discrepancies between Job Cards, Muster Rolls, Registers and Online data • Technical staff not visiting worksites • Poor documentation – ‘M’ books not maintained well, no photos in the Asset Register and no Completion Repport

EFFECTS OF SOCIAL AUDIT • Greater awareness among workers on MGNREGA and their rights • Well attended Grama Sabha • Improvement in maintenance of records and online data entry • Dedicated staff proposed

DIFFICULTIES IN THE CONDUCT OF SOCIAL AUDIT Social Audit viewed as a ‘trouble maker’ as it brings out serious issues, hitherto hidden and so, resisted Accountability mechanisms are poor and system unable to respond to the issues pointed out in Social Audit Reluctance of Implementing Agencies to give the records In some places, PRI Representatives and local officials actively work against the Social Audit process Protest by officials and engineers, but work ethic has improved Conduct of Grama Sabha, ATR, Follow-up, etc. ,

FEEDBACK Issue 1: Low wages (second lowest in the country) – Work culture needs to improve • IEC activity to be done (film screening of good works, pamphlets of works) • Training to do earthwork efficiently • Tools of stakeholders blunt and unproductive • Wage determination to be in a transparent manner – Management structure • Dedicated staff strength is too low • Worksite management should improve with the training for worksite supervisors

FEEDBACK - 2 Issue 2: Lack of work (average days/working HH varies from 76 in Trichy to 35 in Nilgiris) – Need to capture work demand or do data analysis and address the issue pro-actively Issue 3: Need to improve quality of assets – Gram Sabha needs technical and administrative help in selecting works – Ensure optimum output in the execution – To facilitate convergence projects (a mechanism involving high level officers needs to be set up) Issue 4: Transparency and Monitoring – Do wall paintings – Initiate ‘concurrent audit’ by reconstituting panchayat level VMC

FEEDBACK - 3 Issue 5: Address the grievances § Need for a good independent grievance redressal system § Ombudsman system to be publicized and strengthened (maybe unresolved complaints should go to him) Issue 6: MGNREGA data § Need to fix issues with data entry § Need to enter as much data as possible § Need to redesign Physical Registers at Block & Panchayat levels which were designed during the pre EFMS era § Need to give wage information to the workers

ROADMAP § Conduct 500 Social Audits in March 2015 § Fill-up the vacancies among DRPs & BRPs § Cover all the Village Panchayats once during 2015 -2016 § Create a comprehensive database of the Village Social Auditors § Standardisation of the Reporting Formats § Computerisation of the findings

Thank you