Process of Social Audit Under Mgnrega:A Case Study of Kalahandi District in Odisha State of India

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), launched on 2nd February 2006, has empowered the Gram sabha to hold regular social audits of all the projects under the scheme for ensuring transparency and social accountability. Such kinds of social auditing mechanisms become essential in flagship schemes which are heavily financed by the State aimed at specific policy goals. When the available literatures on the implementation of MGNREGA speaks about its effect on the decline of internal migration, reforming rural wage patterns, building of rural assets, there is very little attention devoted towards the actual implementation of the MGNREGA in the letter and spirit of the Act. In reality, the conduct of social audit has not been uniform across the country as many states still lag behind in having an effective social audit. Social audits conducted sporadically have brought out the issues in the implementation of the Act and hence it is argued that MGNREGA has not yet been successful in achieving its goal of overall empowerment of rural poor due to manifold challenges embedded in the process of its implementation itself. It is in this context, the present paper intends to highlight the reality of the conduct of social audit under MGNREGA in Kalahandi district of Odisha state in India.