Inclusion from the bottom

The oppressive summer heat with temperatures touching 42 degrees has not dampened the enthusiasm of Bhagwan Singh, the new assistant secretary to the sarpanch of Bamhorikhurd gram panchayat in Hoshangabad district, Madhya Pradesh. He has been appointed for a very special mission: to make transparency go rural.

A graduate from the village, he is now in charge of the new concurrent auditing system set up by the state government to ensure that every rupee that comes in from Central or State welfare schemes is recorded along with details of how it has been spent.

Being put in place in the three-tier panchayat system at the village, block and district levels, it is meant essentially to plug the leaks and usher in an era of accountability at the grassroots. An intervention-from-below type of model may be different from the corporate- and industry-focused ‘Gujarat model’ of development, but it has played its role. People in Madhya Pradesh say it has been a major contributor to the BJP winning the mandate for a third consecutive term

“We found panchayat accounts across the State in a mess, with cash books not updated and grave totalling mistakes. Handled by the sarpanch and the

sarchiv (assistant), the old system of maintaining accounts and records was flawed,” says Aruna Sharma, additional chief secretary for panchayat and rural development in the State government and the brain behind the new auditing system.

Back in the Bamhorikhurd panchayat, Bhagwan sits before a spanking new computer given to him to monitor the fund flow. His job has been made fairly simple – he requires to make only two entries at his end – cash book and work register, upload photographs of assets that have been built and the rest of the work including the Auditor General's statutory reports are generated automatically by the software installed.

Details at one go

Aptly titled panchayat darpan, the software mirrors the entire financial data in a digital format according to CAG guidelines and provides every detail: fund flow, fund utilisation, works undertaken, demands and statutory reports in the public domain. Though there was initial resistance to the concurrent audit system, Sharma says that after seeing its benefits it has gained acceptance from the people. In fact, ₹98 crore has been unearthed lying unutilised in a host of banks under various schemes, some never audited for over five years.

The software serves other purposes as well. It helps in a seamless convergence of schemes with clear outcomes on what percentage of Central and State funds are used for a particular project.

The Madhya Pradesh model offers many pointers for states wishing to strengthen panchayati raj institutions. Though the BJP manifesto in the recent Lok Sabha elections was short on concepts such as subsidy and welfare, Sharma’s zeal has put in place a robust financial inclusion programme and direct benefit transfer in the villages based on converging funds from different schemes.

The effort of the government to bring bank accounts closer to the people has also paid off. A network of ultra-small banks has been established across the State’s 51 districts. Christened Samruddhi, the scheme has been able to penetrate farflung and unbanked areas, delivering cash just a few kilometres away from the villagers’ homes.

Mapping the population

To achieve all this, the Madhya Pradesh government has made one singular move that has been most effective. Since December 2012, it has undertaken a massive State census under the Samagra Samajik Suraksha Mission (SSSM) mapping every household and including details of family size, income, bank accounts, births, deaths and pension.

The SSSM is meant to record individual and family-based data and link it to family-based entitlements such as housing, MGNREGS employment for 100 days, household toilets, the Janshree scholarship and so on. It also has a mechanism to seed the Aadhaar system and reflect all schemes and programmes.

Policymakers seem to be recognising the benefits of such a development model, especially if it is transparent. It keeps the State government connected with the people and enables citizens to be decision-makers and bring changes into their own lives. This too could serve as a development model for the new regime taking over at the Centre, if at all it is serious about bringing positive changes in the life of the ordinary citizen.