Report on Social Audits in District Udhampur, Jammu & Kashmir –
5th-9th Jan,2015
Details of places visited and meetings held:
 Visited Jammu and Kashmir. Met the Director for Social Audit, Member
Secretary for Rural Development – MGNREGS and Commissioner –
MGNREGA for Jammu and Kashmir.
 Udhampur District – Met the Social Audit Coordinator and interacted with
Nodal officer of the Distreict in MGNREGA:
o Visited Jindror panchayat where the scheduled social audit was taking
place. Visited five panchayats in two blocks (Katwalt, Sarar-both
highest expenditure panchayats in Chenani Block, Damnote-highest
expenditure in Pancheri block,Panjar andLalli). Met Gram Secretaries
and RozgarSahayaks of Panchayats visited.
Key Observations made on the Social Audit Process:
 There is no infrastructure support with the Director for Social Audits in the
Jammu office.
 The state has asked district coordinators to form village social audit committees
that will conduct verifications for the scheme. The committees will have one
village elder or someone respectable from the panchayat, a retired government
official and one labourer from each ward of the panchayat. These members of
the committee are supposed to be volunteers and are not paid any amount from
the government
During the visit to Udhampur:
 Each district has one District social audit coordinator (There are a total of 22
District Social Audit Coordinators in Jammu and Kashmir). As informed by the
State government there are voluntary Village Resource Persons that help in the
conduct of Social Audits at the village level.
o In Udhampur, a District social audit coordinator would have to do 204
panchayats’ Social Audit without any support staff such as Village
resource persons. It is nearly impossible to have a social audit conducted
with such geographical conditions and lack of human resources.
Although there is support from the BDO and Administration it still
would help to have Village Resource Persons.
o The District Social Audit Coordinator does not receive the required
information for conducting Social Audits fifteen days prior to the
date of the Social Audit, as mandated by the Audit of Scheme Rules,
2011.
o The District Social Audit Coordinators were given three day
training in Jammu on the process of social audit. Their training did
not include a visit to the Panchayats to conduct social audits for
hands-on learning.
 The District Social Audit coordinators are not given any travel
allowance by the state and are expected to pay for their travel
themsleves.
 The Panchayats I visited in Udhampur district had no Village Resource
Persons. The Panchayat Secretary and the Rozgar Sahayak mobilise people for
gram sabhas of social audits.
o Firstly, one person (district going to panchayats holding gram sabhas
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could be dangerous, as we have seen in our experience in MP during the
Special Social Audit.
o Secondly, the government has decided to have Village Resource Persons
on voluntary basis and this may not be helpful. As conversations with
people in various panchayats revealed that they would not give away
their time for free while they can earn 200-300 rupees by working
elsewhere.
Social Audit report is filled up as per people’s response present in the Gram
Sabha only, there are no door-to-door verifications held as there are no
Village Resource persons. If the panchayat officials are mobilizing gram
sabhas and not the village resource persons there is a possibility that the officials
may call their own people. Interactions with people revealed that they do not
know about gram sabhas held for deciding MGNREGA works (Damnot and
Sudh-Mahadev Panchayats). Also the panchayat officials explained that
because of the topography of the area it is difficult for them to call everyone,
thus a team of VSAs is a must to do door-to-door verification and mobilization.
The District resource person had no information of Action taken reports
which are necessary and mandatorily required to be maintained as per the
rules of Social Audit.
There were no wall paintings seen in the area. However the DPC for
MGNREGA mentioned that they would try to do wall paintings in their district.
Obersvations in MGNREGA:
 Computer operators at district level are required solely for the purpose of Social
Audit and MGNREGA as there is a lot of data management required. In the case
of Udhampur District the appointed computer operator has been working under
a different government officer than working on MGNREGA and Social Audits.
 According to the MIS 2014-15 report of J&K, the expenditure on labour is more
than on wages in some Panchayats. In 2014-15 expenditure summaries of these
panchayats – J&K-Udhampur distt – Chennani block: Sudhmahadev, Sarar and
Bashat. Udhampur block: Dhanoo and Neeli nallah showed the aforementioned
incorrect information. Either this is a technical problem where the labour
expenditure has been filled into material expenditure or its something else.
 There are five Panchayats being handled by one Panchayat Secretary in Chenani
Block (visited Sarar and Katwalt, panchayats with highest expenditure in the
Block have the same Panchayat Secretary). Out of the five panchayats only one
has a RozgarSahayak. The handling of MGNREGA accounts and maintaining
its records of four Panchayats are with one Panchayat official. The panchayat
officials face immense difficulty as rightly mentioned by them that the workload
is excessive.
 The use of consolidated reports could be encouraged among the Social Audit
Coordinators. The social audit representative visiting panchayats rely mainly on
the data given by the panchayat officials. Relying completely on data given by
panchayats is problematic as there is no information with the auditor to crosscheck whether the information given by the panchayat officials is correct or not.
 The muster-rolls were found to be filled in directly in one sitting rather than
taking attendance everyday, this clearly indicates that the muster-rolls were also
not taken to the worksite to be filled up. Upon enquiring from the panchayat
officials we were told that ‘mates’ are present in some worksites only and not
all.
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o At an ongoing work in Katwalt Panchayat, there was no mate or musterrolls present at the worksite.
o There were muster-rolls without signatures of the job-card holders with
clearance signatures given by concerned government officials (Sarar
Panchayat).
In the panchayats visited there were a lot of people who hadn’t attended any
gram sabhas for planning of MGNREGA works. People complained that the
village officials have been partial in informing people about works opened and
gram sabhas (Damnote, Sudh-mahadev and Lalli panchayat). Thus the private
works such as Protection work on private land is mostly done on those people’s
land who know the officials or are comparatively well-off compared to other
poorer populace of the village (Sudh-Mahadev panchayat). An example would
be – In Sarar pathway with stairs was made to the Sarpanch’s house (photo
attached with this file).In the larger picture this shows the need for VSAs for
mobilizing and conducting gram sabhas.
Putting up worksite boards could help in identifying MGNREGA boards and
for transparency purpose. On the visit to Chenani and Pancheri Blocks, there
were some boards from the year 2010-11 and on the worksites close to the main
road. Worksites visited away from the main road had no boards (Two worksites
in Sarar, two in Katwalt). Whether boards should be put up in works such as
Protection work done on private land is still not clear.
There were some cases where wrong account numbers have been filled in the
muster-rolls. In Damnot panchayat, 35-40 laborers have not received their
payment for their work done in the previous financial year. The newly appointed
panchayat secretary said that their payment has been delayed due to incorrect
account number of jobcard holders. The people of the panchayat demanded, in
the presence of district social audit coordinator, that the social audit be done as
it was cancelled due to the floods and that the date be announced to everyone
so that everyone can participate.
Work allotment, as per MGNREGA is 5km, may not be a workable option as
people prefer to work in their own area and a distance of five km is too much in
the hilly areas. One option would be to have work allotment proximity be
shortened in hilly areas.
Photographs of worksites in files were not found. As explained by panchayat
officials, it is difficult to get a photographer to click pictures of a worksite as
their charges are very high.
Suggested areas of intervention:
 If the state government can form an independent society, it would help the state
complete social audits in accordance with the Audit of Scheme rules 2011. The
financial onus of recruiting and conducting a social audit will then be shared by
the Central Government as per the Special Financial Assistance order of MoRD
dated 14 June, 2014. This will also help the state to set-up a strengthened social
audit unit for the state that could help in social audits of other schemes also.
 The state should,if it can, pay a travel allowance to its district coordinators for
their travel to panchayats.
 If the state can select Village Resource persons, give them proper training and
pays for their work on a daily wage basis it could help strengthen the quality of
Social Audits in the state.
 Hands on training for managing and uploading information on MIS is of
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immense importance. Also appointment of IT staff for Social Audits could help
in strengthening the base of social audits.
A state-wide training of District Coordinators on the process of Social Audit
could be organized. It would help the Coordinators to understand the use of MIS,
Consolidated reports, doing verifications of worksites and entitlements and
checking work files and muster-rolls maintained by the panchayat. It would
further help in strengthening the resource persons for conducting social audits
in other schemes also. The training would have to include a conduct of Social
Audit in panchayats with Social Audit personnel of the state to help them
understand the whole process, which is in accordance with Audit of scheme
rules 2011.
Test Audits in the state could be conducted to verify findings of the Social Audit
unit.
Wall paintings could help in dissemination of information about MGNREGA.
Also along with it the nature and types of works that can be done under
MGNREGA should be painted. As per the feedback from interactions withjobcard holders, the people knew very little about the kind of work that can be
planned via MGNREGA.