DoSJE, NIRD&PR sign MoU for social audit

Hyderabad: The Union Department of Social Justice and Empowerment and National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (NIRD&PR) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to set up the National Resource Cell for Social Audit of DSJE (NRCSA-DSJE) at the Centre for Social Audit of NIRD&PR, Hyderabad.

NRCSA-DSJE will enable and oversee social audit units in States by facilitating 6,000 social audits of four categories of schemes of DoSJE across the country in the next five years including schemes covering grant in Aid institutions, Scholarship schemes covering SC and OBC students, Pradhan Mantri AnusuchitJaati Abhyuday Yojana (PM AJAY), PCR schemes, and free coaching schemes.

These social audits will be carried out by the Social Audit Units (SAUs) which have already been set up in every State under the Mahatma Gandhi NREGA.

The NRCSA-DSJE will coordinate with the SAUs to monitor the progress and quality of social audits conducted and handhold and support the SAUs capacity building and training requirements. The NRCSA-DSJE would operate under the Centre for Social Audit, NIRDPR.

Secretary DoSJE Reddy Subrahmaniyam mentioned that there is a dire need for DoSJ&E to come out with framework to lay out a set of principles and tools which would ensure that all schemes/ initiatives of the department will meet basic standards of transparency and accountability.