In an effort to empower women in rural areas, the Central government has decided to let them carry out a social audit of its flagship welfare schemes. They will also work as the nodal persons to resolve the complaints of the beneficiaries of these programmes, a top government official said on Wednesday.
In a social audit, the beneficiaries themselves will assess the impact of government schemes and programmes by comparing official records with the actual ground situation, Amarjeet Sinha, Secretary, Rural Development, told PTI on the sidelines of the National Seminar on Social Audit of Rural Development Programmes.
Educated women in rural areas associated with the self-help groups (SHGs) working under the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) will check whether the welfare works are being carried out properly, he added.
The social audit started with the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), but later the Rural Development Ministry extended it to all of its welfare schemes, including the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Gramin) and the Pradhan Mantri Sadak Yojana (Rural).
“These women will check whether the work under the welfare schemes has properly been done or not, whether pensions have been received by elderly persons, whether beneficiaries got their houses built or not,” Mr. Sinha said, suggesting that these women were better placed to check discrepancies in the schemes.
The women will be paid for conducting the social audit of the welfare schemes, he added.
Besides, to empower these women and make them stakeholders in a better implementation of the schemes in the rural areas, it was decided that they will also work as the nodal persons of these schemes for grievance redressal, Mr. Sinha said.
The ministry has finalised the auditing standards for the social audit with the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), he informed.
The government, along with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) and the National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, Hyderabad, has also developed a short-term certificate course on social audits for district and block resource persons and SHGs, Mr. Sinha said.
