The Rural Development Ministry will hold the second national seminar on Social Audit of Rural Development Programmes on September 26, the ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Minister Giriraj Singh will address the seminar on the theme “Re-imagining Social Audit with a view to bring transparency and accountability”.

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) gives Gram Sabha the right to conduct regular social audits of all works and expenditures. This includes facilitation of the social audit through independent Social Audit Units, complete access to all records-online and offline, and pro-active disclosure through Wall writings.

MGNREGA was the first Act to mandate Social Audit by the Gram Sabha of all the projects taken up in the Gram Panchayat. Since then, it has been mandated in many other schemes.

The central government, in consultation with the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (C&AG) notified the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Audit of Schemes Rules, 2011, which laid down the methodology and principles for conducting social audits in the States/Union Territories. As of now, 28 States/UTs have established Social Audit units. The SAUs are being constantly impressed upon to recruit and train required core staff at State, District and Block level, the Rural Development Ministry said.

The first national seminar was held in November, 2019, after which Social Audit was extended to other major schemes administered by the Department of Rural Development.

"It is imperative to review the status of the implementation of the Social Audit in the States/UTs and work out a road map to re-imagine the Social Audit with a view to bring transparency and accountability. In this regard, this 2nd National Seminar is being organized by the Department of Rural Development on 26th September," the ministry said.

Union Minister of State for Rural Development and Steel Faggan Singh Kulaste, Union Minister of State for Rural Development and Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti and Union Minister of State for Panchayati Raj Kapil Moreshwar Patil, along with ministry officials will also attend the seminar.

Experts participating in the seminar and officials have been invited from the states to share their experiences regarding Social Audit.

Director of Social Audit Unit from States/Union Territories will be participating along with SRP (State Resource Persons), DRP (District Resource Persons) and BRP (Block Resource Persons) of State's Social Audit Team.

Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Telegraph Online staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.