In the final analysis, what makes any NREGA social audit worth all the pain and effort is the awareness it creates among poor beneficiaries. It is a measure of the hard labour that awaits NREGA activists in other States that a social audit conducted under blazing arc lights, and with so much official support, such as the one in Bhilwara in Rajasthan, could run into so many roadblocks. Virtually all...

The Bhilwara social audit team repeatedly came up against resistance. Yet the coming together of civil society and government in Rajasthan augurs well for the future of NREGA.  For watchers of India’s grassroots democracy, the place to be in recently was Bhilwara in Rajasthan; the town and the countryside were decked out in carnival colours for an audit exercise that saw thousands come together — social rights activists led by...

A series of social audits in NREGS works in Rajasthan’s Bhilwara district led to unearthing of humungous irregularities and filing of FIRs against several government and panchayat officials and release of delayed payments worth crores of rupees to the ordinary NREGS workers (See details/ links below). The irregularities included the use of sub-standard material, non-issuance of job cards or post office passbooks and fudging of account books. The audits were organized...

NEW DELHI: A combative rural development minister CP Joshi has defended packing a key NREGA advisory body with Congress MPs, saying he could not give space to people who were opposed to the UPA agenda. Joshi was battling questions on why only Congress MPs and social activists were made part of the Central Employment Guarantee Council when the RD ministry could have made it politically inclusive. Rejecting the charge, Joshi...

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is confident that the NREGS is his best bet to offset the drought but many grassroots activists are unsure of the scheme’s effectiveness, especially after some recent amendments. While the drought has spread to 246 districts, a heated debate rages on the poor peoples’ entitlements versus rural asset formation, even though in theory the two positions appear complementary. 14 organisations throughout the country are up in arms...