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RTI activists stage dharna on social audit

JAIPUR: Right to information activists led by Magsaysay award winner Aruna Roy started a dharna outside the office of the Banswara District Collector on Wednesday even as the Rajasthan Government made it clear that it would rather have a separate social audit on the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) programmes in the district than cooperating with the NGO groups which had scheduled to carry out the exercise there from December 10 to 20.

The protestors who squatted in the open after their tents were dismantled by the administration in the afternoon, included activists, researchers and academicians from Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka and Meghalaya besides Rajasthan and Delhi. Many of them had participated in the much-acclaimed social audit on NREGA held two years back in Dungarpur district.

Rajasthan Minister for Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Kalulal Gujjar, even after swearing by the Government’s commitment for transparency in NREGA works and social audit, blamed activist groups for trying to malign panchayati raj bodies. The NGOs were free to gather information under the provisions of the Right to Information Act but they cannot make any claim on the right to hold a social audit, he said here in a statement.

The Minister’s clarification came in the wake of the activists under the banner of “Rozgar Evum Suchana Ka Adhikar” on Monday accusing the State Government of backing out on the Banswara social audit after taking credit for the previous exercise in Dungarpur in 2005. The Government’s backtracking is said to be partly due to the opposition to the audit from the elected representatives of the panchayati raj bodies and the field level functionaries in the district.

“The Minister is talking about freedom to hold social audit. So far we don’t have the required information. Not even a single sheet of muster roll has been provided to us even after several days of pursuit,” Nikhil Dey of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) said talking on phone from Banswara. “If the State Government’s intentions were genuine it could have ensured availability of information,” he noted.

The Government seemingly has its own agenda. According to Mr.Gujjar, steps were being initiated to set up social audit forums at the panchayat level with five local persons, including two women, as members. The forum would be chosen by the respective gram sabhas and would have one member each from the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

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RTI activists stage dharna on social audit

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