New Delhi: In line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi led Government’s objective of bringing Good Governance through Transparency, Participation and Accountability in all Government Schemes, Ministry of Rural Development has decided to institutionalize social audits in its major schemes. To begin with, Social Audit Guidelines have been released today for National Social Assistance Program (NSAP) and Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana –Grameen (PMAY-G). The Minister of State for Rural Development Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti inaugurated the ‘National Seminar on Social Audit of Rural Development Programmes’ today and released the guidelines for both the schemes namely NSAP and PMAY- G along with a report ‘Status of Social Audits in India’.
Delivering her address, the Minister of State for Rural Development Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti expressed happiness at effective implementation and monitoring of Rural Development Schemes across the Nation. She said that in this era of social engineering, Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants all the work to be done with transparency. She linked the Seminar with ‘Sagar Manthan’ and said that just like in ‘sagar manthan’, this seminar will also help in churning out vital points for effective rollout of the schemes and their social audit. She also talked about PM’s vision of taking out all citizens of India out of poverty by 2022 and said that the entire Ministry is working in that direction. She asserted that nothing is difficult as long as one is determined to complete the task and said that work will continue to be done in achieving these goals.
Delivering the keynotes address, the Secretary, Department of Rural Development expressed happiness over the progress made by several States in effectively undertaking various schemes of the Ministry and also the work done on promoting and undertaking social audits. He said that all achievements are that of the people from Rural India and not those of the Ministry. Sinha said that there is scope for exponential expansion in the field of social auditing and gave credit to the National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj for working extensively in this field.
The two-day seminar has been organised at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi on 13th and 14th November 2019 jointly by the Department of Rural Development and National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj. Secretary, Department of Rural Development Amarjeet Sinha and other senior officers of the Ministry were also present during the inauguration and shared their thoughts. The objective of the two-day seminar is to understand the current status of social audits and Social Audit Units and develop plan for roll out of social audit in other programmes.
