Social audits were the accountability backbone of MGNREGA. Discuss the governance challenges in scaling similar mechanisms under the VB-G RAM G framework.

Section 20 of the VB-G RAM G Act, 2025 retains and strengthens Gram Sabha social audits, mandated at least once every six months [1]. Yet MGNREGA's own record shows the instrument was stronger on paper than on the ground; scaling it to a larger, infrastructure-heavy mission is essentially a governance, not a legal, challenge.

MGNREGA's social audit record — the baseline problem

• The Standing Committee on Rural Development found only about 32% of Gram Panchayats audited in 2023-24, with states like Goa, Andaman & Nicobar and Puducherry yet to establish a Social Audit Unit (SAU) [3].
• SAUs suffered delayed fund release and thin trained manpower, and audit findings rarely converted into recovery or action — the Committee had to recommend independent functioning and public disclosure of reports [3].

Governance challenges in scaling under VB-G RAM G

• Institutional independence: SAUs remain financially dependent on the very rural development departments whose works they audit — a structural conflict the new Act does not automatically dissolve.
• Fiscal capacity of states: with 60:40 (general) and 90:10 (NE/Himalayan) cost sharing, and states bearing expenditure above the Centre's normative allocation [2], audit budgets are the first casualty in fiscally stressed states.
• Widened technical scope: auditing 125 days of employment plus durable infrastructure and water-security works [1] demands engineering literacy that village-level auditors typically lack.
• Technology as substitute, not complement: biometric authentication, geospatial monitoring and weekly public disclosure [2] improve traceability, but cannot replace deliberative Gram Sabha verification of work quality.
• Transition risk: an interim allocation of ₹95,692 crore for FY 2026-27 [4] was made while rules were still being framed, leaving audit institutions in administrative limbo.

The Act's real advance lies in the raised 9% administrative ceiling, which — if ring-fenced for independent, professionally staffed SAUs with statutory action-taken reporting — can convert audits from ritual to remedy. Anchored in Article 243G's mandate of Panchayat self-governance, credible social audits will decide whether VB-G RAM G delivers rozgar with accountability on the road to Viksit Bharat.