By Jeevan Mathew Kurian, IANS
Kozhikode (Kerala) : In official parlance, audit usually means scouring the account books in the solitude of a government office. But a village in Kerala changed all that when it scrutinised the works under a central job guarantee scheme.
The Vellamunda panchayat, around 500 km from state capital Thiruvananthapuram, conducted the social audit and scrutinised the works under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) in the Narokkadavu ward. The works here include construction of village roads and water conservation projects.
NREGS is a central government scheme introduced through legislation in 2005 for generating employment in backward regions and guarantees one job to every family in villages covered by it.
It was an 11-member team consisting of farmers, farm labourers and those from the weaker sections of society like the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes that conducted the audit.
“Audits are usually done in offices and involve paper work only. This one was different. The team inspected the work sites, interacted with the beneficiaries and elicited their reactions. The audit was a huge success,” A.N. Prabhakaran, president of the Vellamunda panchayat, told IANS.
A special gram sabha (village meeting) convened at Vellamunda Friday discussed the report of the audit.
The report brought out many lacunae in the scheme and in its implementation. “The problems listed in the report were such that some of them could be addressed at the local level itself. But others needed intervention at the state-level. There were even demands for amendments in the NREGS enactment,” Prabhakaran said.
One of the major problems faced by the scheme is the delay in distributing wages to workers. It takes more than a month for wages to be distributed and as per the rules it should be done in 14 days.
“It is the sluggish paper work that results in the delay. There is only one overseer to supervise 60-70 works at a time. It is humanly impossible for him to do the supervision and then process the paper work and get clearance for payment in time. The state government should post more officials,” he said.
Another major proposal in the audit report is to undertake work under NREGS in the farms of small peasants, who own five acres or less.
“If NREGS could also cover work in farms, it would be of great help to small farmers. Apart from this, we are finding it difficult to identify productive projects to employ around 6,000 workers in the panchayat. Allowing work in farms will solve this problem too,” Prabhakaran added.
Social audit of NREGS works in the other wards of the panchayat will also be conducted, said N.C. Venugopal, Vellamunda panchayat secretary. Audit teams selected for other wards will be trained in auditing.
“The process of auditing is expected to start in February,” Venugopal said.
Under NREGS the panchayat has spent Rs.14 million and created 111,000 workdays.
The Kerala government is planning to introduce social audits in other parts of the state too. The State Institute for Rural Development (SIRD) is preparing people who will impart training to audit teams at the village level.