1. SOCIAL Audit Society of Tamil Nadu
(SASTA)

2. Establishment
G.O. No. 64 dated Social Audit Society of Tamil Nadu established
Director, 2 JDs and 1 AD appointed from RD & PR Deptt.,
G.O. No. 125 dated – Approval of bye-laws for SASTA
– Registration of the Society

3. 1st Governing Body Meeting (Feb. 2013)
Important items in Agenda:
Creation of Additional office staff
Budget for
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

4. 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

5. Training & Capacity building on Social Audit
4 ToTs 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

6. 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 1,00,000 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, 2nd Governing Body resolved to entrust the training with 5 RIRDs and training is in progress

7. 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

8. 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 workers selected at Block level
Minimum educational qualification: 8th 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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.,

15. 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

16. 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

17. Feedback - 3 Issue 5: Address the grievances Issue 6: MGNREGA data
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

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

19. Thank you