Southern States - Kerala   

Social audit policy on the anvil

By Our Special Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM DEC. 9. The Government is finalising a social audit policy under the Modernising Government Programme (MGP), to be aided by the Asian Development Bank.

Social audit is proposed as supplemental to conventional audit to help public agencies to understand their performance as perceived by the stake-holders and improve performance.

According to a document prepared by the MGP for discussions, social audit is to be done at both the levels of Government and local Government. Besides, community audits would cover local Governments and construction projects.

However, in case of the Government, the social audit would be confined to the Social Welfare Department, the SC/ST Welfare Department, the Health Department, the Higher Education Department, the Public Works Department, the Water Resources Department, the State Electricity Board, the Kerala Water Authority and public sector organisations created primarily for social purposes.

The social audit of the Government would be conducted by accredited panels of eminent citizens of unimpeachable integrity and social commitment to be identified jointly by the Government and the Opposition. They would be empowered to co-opt experts.

In the case of local Government, in addition to panels of eminent citizens, the Performance Audit wing is proposed to be used for conducting a regular form of social audit.

The social audit reports, which would be public documents, would be given to the organisations and departments concerned and the Legislatur. Legislature committees would go into these reports.

The community audit would include general audit in grama sabha or ward sabha, audit of specific items by stake-holders and concurrent community audit of public works by the benefited groups. Special grama sabha meetings would be convened with advance notice to do the community auditing.

The sabhas can constitute special panels on the spot to go into details. If defects could not be rectified, the panel and local Governments can refer it to an expert in the locality acceptable to both parties.

Grave irregularities detected are to be sent to a grievance redress committee to be set up at the district level. The committee get the matter enquired into by a competent team. Its report would then be forwarded to the Ombudsman for further action.

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