Assess the role of Gram Sabhas and social audits in preventing leakages in rural employment programmes.

Leakages in rural employment programmes include ghost workers, inflated muster rolls and works that exist only on paper. The VB-G RAM G Act, 2025 carries forward MGNREGA's model of Gram Sabha-led social audits [1], which turns the beneficiaries themselves into auditors. In design, this is India's strongest check on leakages. In practice, its effect depends on how much of the country it actually covers and whether its findings lead to action.

Role in preventing leakages

• Ground verification: Workers check muster rolls, job cards and worksites in public. This exposes fake beneficiaries that paper audits miss. The Mahajan-led Standing Committee recorded fake job cards and corruption [2].
• Deterrence through publicity: Findings are read out at public hearings, so officials face social pressure as well as administrative action.
• Participatory planning: The Gram Sabha picks works based on local need, which leaves less room for unnecessary works approved from the top.
• Tech-enabled audits: The Social Audit MIS shows geo-tagged photos of audit meetings, which makes it harder to fake an audit [3].

Limitations

• Coverage gap: In 2024-25, about 3 in 10 Gram Panchayats were not audited even once [3].
• Capacity deficit: The CAG found Social Audit Units understaffed in Madhya Pradesh, and the required twice-yearly audits were not done [4].
• Weak follow-through: Audit findings usually end in orders to recover money, not prosecution. Even approved dues go unpaid: in Assam, ₹27.56 lakh of ₹28.87 lakh in delayed-wage compensation for 2019–24 was still pending in March 2025 [5].
• Diluted oversight: The 2026 Grievance Redressal Rules dropped the draft requirement to place action-taken reports before local bodies [6]. This removes a low-cost Gram Sabha check.
• Elite capture: Local power-holders often dominate Gram Sabhas, so workers may fear speaking out against them.

Way forward

• Independent, fully staffed Social Audit Units; a Social Audit Calendar; test audits to recheck existing audits; and public release of audit reports, as the Standing Committee (2024-25) recommended [3].
• Place grievance ATRs on Gram Sabha agendas, and require an FIR when fraud crosses a set money threshold.

Gram Sabhas and social audits are a necessary first line of defence against leakages, but they cannot do the job alone. Their reach is uneven and their findings often go unenforced. Proper staffing, transparency and penalties tied to audit findings would let them deliver the participatory democracy envisaged in Article 243A and advance SDG 16.6 (accountable institutions).