U.P. orders social audit of village panchayats

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has ordered a social audit of all 52,000 village panchayats in the state, a senior government official said.

“The social audit has been necessitated to chart out development plans at the grassroots level, apart from ensuring transparency and proper redressal of issues at the panchayat level,” the official quoted above told The Sunday Guardian.

A directive asking for the setting up of a committee was issued last week by the UP government. “A directive by the UP government has been issued, asking the administration to form a committee to carry out social audit across the state. In its directive, the state government has also asked for uploading of audit findings on government websites,” the same official cited above said.

“There is a need to constitute a committee of about 6-10 persons in every village to carry on a social audit and check what kind of development is needed in the villages of UP. The social audit team would try to know what the requirements are on the ground and how people could help in carrying out development works. Former sarpanches, ex-panches, ex-servicemen, graduates, post-graduates, doctors and engineers could be included in the committee,” the statement of the directive reads.

“The purpose of the social audit is to ensure proper implementation of various development projects launched by the state government. The panchayats are allowed to participate in outlining plans for their own development,” Rakesh Thakur, one of the social audit coordinators from UP’s Shamli district, told The Sunday Guardian.

The decision of carrying social audit will be taken seriously and statewide training centres will be opened.

Suresh Rana, a legislator from Shamli, told The Sunday Guardian: “An intensive training would be given to the volunteers of the social audit committee under this programme to accelerate the pace of development work in villages and effective implementation of government schemes in rural areas. During the training, important issues would be included in the training programme like provisions of the Haryana Panchayati Raj Act, and duties and responsibilities of elected representatives.”

“A social audit system would be implemented in every gram panchayat to make them more accountable and transparent in executing various schemes of the state government and ensuring people’s participation in the development of UP,” Rana added.

Earlier, in a major decision, the Uttar Pradesh Cabinet had approved the proposal to get all development authorities across the state audited. The decision in this regard came after the second Cabinet meeting of Yogi Adityanath’s government held just after he was elected as Chief Minister.

Civic polls are likely to be held in Uttar Pradesh next month. The polls are being considered a ground testing event for the ruling BJP in the state.

The Aam Aadmi Party has also announced to contest the UP panchayat polls. There are 16 civic bodies in the state.