below the poverty line and those that are landless (Reddy, Reddy and Bantilan, 2014). The Mahatma Gandhi National Employment Guarantee Scheme also entails two important principles of execution. Reddy, Reddy and Bantilan discuss these principles in these words:
“The MGNREGA Mahatma Gandhi National Employment Guarantee Act) is based on the twin principles of universalism and self-selection (Reddy, Reddy and Bantilan, 2014: 251-252).”
The following sections turn to the analysis of the scope and challenges of beneficiary participation in social accountability mechanisms, especially social audit organized in the local self-governing institutions in the district of Barpeta in lower Assam.
4.3 Assessing beneficiary participation in social accountability mechanisms in local self-
Figure 4.1 shows the percentage of respondents participating in the social audit forums conducted in the district of Barpeta in November 2014. Among the households (fifty nine households in number) selected as samples in our survey, 35.59% respondents participated in the social audit forums, whereas 64.40% respondents failed to participate in the social audit forums. This indicates that social audit organized in local self-governing institutions of Assam failed to engage a large number of beneficiaries.
Our aim was to examine the probable conditions that may influence beneficiary participation.
We also tried to assess the effectiveness of beneficiary participation in the district of Barpeta when social audit was conducted in November, 2014. Our surveys suggest that most of the beneficiaries did not have access to the important information on participatory governance mechanisms as well as the implementation of rural development schemes including the Indira Awas Yojana and the Mahatma Gandhi National Employment Guarantee Scheme. Lack of information primarily effected beneficiary participation in social accountability mechanisms, particularly the social audit processes. Beneficiaries are largely ignorant about different participatory spaces available to them under the social accountability mechanisms. The entire social audit process of 2014 (November) in Assam allowed participatory spaces to the beneficiaries in three ways (a) participation of beneficiaries in ground level verification of work carried out by the panchayats under the rural development schemes (such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Employment Guarantee Scheme and the Indira Awas Yojana); (b)
0 20 40 60 80
35.59
64.4
Figure 4.1: Percentage of respondents participating in social audit forums in the district of Barpeta
Percentage of respondents who attended social audit forums among sample household Percentage of respondents who did not attend social audit forums among sample household
Source: Survey responses, 2018
participation of beneficiaries during door-to-door visits of the social audit teams (SATs) to share relevant information; and (c) participation of beneficiaries in the discussions in the social audit forums (SAFs) where social audit reports were submitted. Our field research revealed that beneficiaries were not informed earlier about these three participatory mechanisms. On the contrary, representatives of the gaon panchayats however claimed that before conducting the social audit forums (the gram sabha where social audit reports were presented for public scrutiny), they performed their delegated duties like making public announcements and providing adequate information to the villagers about the meetings. In reality, only few beneficiaries were informed about the social audit. This was also revealed by our respondents. Some beneficiaries were present in the social audit forums but they failed to participate effectively. Moreover, they failed to participate actively in the other two participatory spaces (participation of beneficiaries in ground level verification of work and participation during door-to-door visits of the social audit teams). Survey findings of the study, as represented in Figure 4.2, show that beneficiary presence in the social audit forums was relatively better than the participation in the other two important mechanisms of social accountability. About 38.7% beneficiaries participated i.e. mere presence in the social audit forums in Manikpur, about 39.41% in Baghbar, and 29.9% in Batagaon gaon panchayats.
Participation of beneficiaries in the ground level verification of work was relatively low.
Only about 11.10% of the beneficiaries in Manikpur participated in this social accountability mechanism. In Baghbar about 17.76% participated in this mechanism and in Batagaon about 13.30% participated in the ground level verification of work during the social audit process.
Participation of beneficiaries during door-to-door visits of the social audit team was even less. About 9.00% beneficiaries participated in this mechanism in Manikpur. In Baghbar about 9.69% beneficiaries participated and in Batagaon about 10.50% participated in door-to- door visits to conduct the social accountability practice.
Figure 4.3 shows the percentage of respondents who took part in participatory governance mechanisms, especially in the social audit forum. Among the households that took part in our survey and participated in social audit, 28.57% respondents raised the issues of rural development during the social audit forums. Out of these, 57.14 % revealed that they did not raise any particular issue on socio-economic development of the village, but they discussed the issues that were raised by others. 9.52% households raised and discussed issues of rural development. Our survey reveals that most of the beneficiaries showed mere presence in the social audit forums. They hardly participated in the forums or asked direct questions to the gaon panchayat representatives on the process of implementation of the government schemes.
The beneficiaries failed to share any information on Indira Awas Yojana and Mahatma Gandhi National Employment Guarantee Scheme or issues regarding non-implementation of public funds allocated for these schemes. Our focused group discussions and in-depth interviews also reveal that the beneficiaries failed to use the participatory spaces although citizen participation was made mandatory as a part of the implementation process of the government-sponsored schemes. Preliminary pilot study that was undertaken at the beginning of the current research showed that a number of reasons could have contributed to ineffective
0.0 5.0 10.0 15.0 20.0 25.0 30.0 35.0 40.0
Manikpur Baghbar Batagaon
38.7 39.41
29.9
11.1 9.69
13.3 9.0
17.76
10.5
Axis Title
Participation in social audit forum
Participation in ground verification of work
Participation in door-to-door visit of social audit team
Figure 4.2: Percentage of beneficiariey participation in the three participatory spaces in social audit, Barpeta district
(% counted for each space against the total respondents)
Source: Survey responses, 2018
* Participation in social audit forum, colored Blue, meant mere presence of beneficiaries.
beneficiary participation in the local governing institutions. This study identifies patronage politics, socio-economic conditions and cultural norms as factors that may have influenced participatory decisions in the selected villages in the district of Barpeta.
4.4 Patronage politics and beneficiary participation in social accountability mechanisms