Social Audit as a Means to Curb Corruption: The NREGA Experience

Abstract

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), 2005 is an important step towards realization of the right to work. It aims at arresting out-migration of rural households in search of employment, simultaneously enhancing people's livelihood on a sustained basis by developing economic and social infrastructure in rural areas. This Act mandates 100 days manual work for every rural unskilled and unemployed men and women of India. To keep the NREGA activities under scrutiny a system of mandatory social audit has been put in place. Unfortunately, social audits have largely been reduced to a mere compliance mechanism with too scant reporting of malpractices and misappropriations. Media and various survey reports abound with the unfathomable corruption around NREGA activities. But they hardly find any mention in the social audit reports. Thus, the basic purpose of having public scrutiny over the public works gets defeated. The present paper attempts to highlight the efficacy of social audit system in the context of NREGA, the largest ever social security measure.