Social ombudsmen set up in all districts across Telangana

Hyderabad: The State government has constituted social ombudsmen in all the 33 districts of the State.

The Society for Social Audit, Accountability and Transparency (SSAAT) was formed for the purpose process of social audit wherein wage seekers assisted by the social audit resource persons, conduct public audit of the works, expenditure and entitlements provided under the MGNREG Act, 2005

These teams will visit all villages and send audit reports to the Central Government as well as the State government. The ombudsmen will be part of the department of Rural and Panchayat Raj department.

It may mentioned here that the centre had made it clear that from this fiscal, the Centre would not give funds for employment guarantee scheme MGNREGS to states that do not appoint ombudspersons in 80 per cent of their districts where the scheme has been applied.

The Union Rural Development Ministry had stated that Gujarat, Arunachal Pradesh and Goa, and Telangana, and union territories such as Puducherry, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, and Dadra and Nagar Haveli do not have a single ombudsperson for the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). Following this, the state government now announced the appointment of the ombudsmen and also gave them training at the MCHRD recently.