The Meghalaya example

As the first State to pass a social audit law, its experience is instructive on how to increase awareness of entitlements

SHILLONG, 17/06/2007: Khasi farmers with their traditional 'Knup' (bamboo hat) planting paddy seedlings in monsoon rain in Shillong, capital of Meghalaya on June 17, 2007. Meghalaya is situated about 3200 feet above the sea level is basically an Agricultural State with about 80% of its total population depending entirely on Agriculture for their livelihood. In Meghalaya, summer is for a period of about 5 months, from May to September, with torrential rains caused by the South West Monsoon. The State claims that about 42 per cent area under paddy have been covered with HYV with the average productivity of 2300 kgs/ha. Besides the major food crops of Rice and Maize, the State is also renowned for its Horticultural crops like Orange, Lemon, Pineapple, Guava, Litchi, Banana, Jack Fruits and Temperate fruits such as Plum, Pear, Peach etc. The Khasis, the Jaintias and the Garos are the three major ethnic groups of original inhabitants of the State. Photo: Ritu Raj Konwar

Nearly 300 people, mostly women, gathered in a community hall on a sunny afternoon in Iewshillong village, Meghalaya waiting for the “social audit meeting” to begin. They wondered what the ‘social audit’, that had unfolded in their village over the past five days, was going to amount to.

Talking it over

When the distribution register of foodgrains under the National Food Security Act was read out, there was an uneasy silence. One woman raised her hand to say that the dealer had been charging her more than what was recorded. The dealer, the wife of the village headman, reminded people that they had agreed to pay more to make up for transportation losses. When the whole hall erupted in cheers of unanimous support for the dealer and disapproval for her act of apparent disloyalty in saying what she did, she stood and softly said on the mike, “I am not complaining. I am only stating the truth”. The soft voice of Margaret Shabong was the loudest affirmation of what social audits stood for — speaking truth to power. Her individual act of stating the truth led to an administrative decision of preventing rollover of transportation costs of foodgrains to the citizen. The village eventually applauded her, as she spoke again and stood her ground, and a mature deliberative democracy demonstrated its potential in a remote Khasi village.

In April 2017, Meghalaya became the first State in the country to pass a social audit legislation , the Meghalaya Community Participation and Public Services Social Audit Act. This Act mandated social audits across 21 schemes and 11 departments.

Later in the year, the Meghalaya government decided to pilot social audits in a campaign mode to unpack the modalities that would have to be institutionalised across the State for meeting the mandate of the legislation. Eighteeen villages representing Garo, Khasi and Jaintia Hills were selected for the pilot. The process began in the third week of November 2017, and culminated with public hearings in 18 villages, including Iewshillong.

The Meghalaya exercise demonstrated how social audits can be developed as an ongoing process through which citizens participate in the planning, implementation and monitoring of the programme. Meghalaya is a Sixth Schedule Area, so the audits had to be built on traditional tribal institutions, leveraging their inherent strengths and facilitating their engagement with contemporary democratic practices. The audits were deliberately positioned to be a platform for sharing information about schemes, and enhancing awareness amongst people about their entitlements; detecting beneficiaries who were eligible, but had been left out; recording people’s testimonies; identifying priorities for inputs for planning; registering of grievances; and pinpointing systemic shortcomings. The critical requirement of recording financial and procedural irregularities and deviations between fact and record remained a core part of the exercise.

The audits helped identify and bring about evidence-based policy changes. More than 21 issues were identified based on pilots alone that needed a change in policy, in the interest of the community. For instance, several instances of local discretion in drawing up pension beneficiary lists for the National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP) and the Chief Minister Pension Programme were recorded, because the CM pension provided twice as much remuneration as the NSAP. At a culmination meeting, the government announced parity between the two schemes, benefiting thousands of pensioners.

Citizen oversight

In India today, there is a growing acknowledgement of social audits as a credible means of institutionalising citizen oversight. There is therefore an urgent need to come up with a working protocol for facilitating social audits across a range of interventions. The experience of Meghalaya has taught us how social audit is intrinsically related to processes of community participation and grievance redress. The Meghalaya pilots have also helped formulate a practical framework through which that can be done. Draft rules were prepared on the basis of consultation.

By passing and rolling out a social audit law, Meghalaya has made a breakthrough in the framework of accountability to the people. Social audit is much more than just a tool of “good governance”. Knowing the reluctance of most government establishments to share power or become accountable, this initiative is unlikely to spread or become robust, unless driven by citizens groups. Civil society needs to shape the social audit campaign, be a watchdog, and staunchly protect the independence of the process. Social audits must become part of the demand for effective legislation for the whole country.

Sampath Kumar is Commissioner and Secretary, Government of Meghalaya. Rakshita Swamy works with peoples’ campaigns and the government on institutionalising social accountability practices