Jairam Ramesh calls for social audit in anti-poverty scheme

New Delhi, July 20 (ANI): Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh has emphasised on the need for social audit in anti-poverty Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.

Addressing a session of the 'social audit workshop of MGNREGA here on Tuesday, Ramesh said: "We must now take some hard, tough decisions. These rules will remain rules. It will remain a piece of subordinate legislation if we don't mean business. Very clearly rules have been set out that Gram Panchayats must conduct social audits once in every six months. In fact that is the first rule. Second rule, that there must be an independent directorate of social audit, independent of the implementing agency."

He further said without management information system, tracking the flow of public expenditure would be difficult.

"We must have, the Centre on a transaction based MIS (Management Information System). Again, I am very sorry that barring Andhra Pradesh, we do not have a transaction based MIS elsewhere in the country. Without a transaction based MIS at the block level and upward we are not going to be able to track the flow of public expenditure. For me, the transaction based MIS is a basic prerequisite for accountability on transparency. Without a transaction based MIS, social audit will not have much meaning," he added.

Ramesh also said he would consult the Comptroller and Auditor General office for effective implementation of social audit schemes.

He praised the Janata Information System of Rajasthan that provides information about the card holder.

"While we take the CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General) initiative on social audit forward, we must also make sure the centrality of the transaction based MIS at the block level and above and the Rajasthan type Janata Information System (JIS) at the level of the habitation to provide for full transparency on the job card holders, the nature of the work, the amount of material, the unit cost of the material and so on. I think if we do these two things, we will find the regime of social audit that we have identified meaningful," he said. (ANI)