Social audits are a requisite tool under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) to monitor and evaluate the works that are being carried out under MGNREGA, in line with annual village plans. PACS has developed a new social audit model to better measure the overall impact of MGNREGA, especially focusing on the inclusion of socially excluded groups. This model has been taken up by various state governments. 

MGNREGA (the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) is a government employment scheme that guarantees rural households 200 days of paid work every year doing unskilled manual labour. Under the Act every Gram Panchayat (village council) should have an annual MGNREGA plan that includes a list of all the projects that need to be carried out in the community. These projects could include building new wells, repairing roads or irrigating farmland. The resulting assets – such as wells, roads or irrigation systems – should be used and accessed by the whole community.

Under Section ‘17’ of MGNREGA, independent social audits of the Gram Panchayats should happen every 6 months, carried out by a third party. These audits should be participatory, including all village members to ensure that MGNREGA works are being carried out inclusively, fairly and in line with annual plans.

Under the above scheme BSA has been assigned by Kalahandi Dist. Administration for Social Audit of Junagarh, Th.Rampur, Karlamunda, Bhawanipatna and Kesinga Block. An one month residential Training was conducted by DRDA, Kalahandi for capacity Building of the newly appointed Auditor by BSA.