Social Audit for ICDS services in Koraput

There is no second opinion that ICDS services assumes very important role in the welfare of women and children with respect to reducing malnourishment and overall improvement in the health related indicators. In order to strengthen these services the Koraput district administration has started Social Audit in ICDS on pilot basis in 14 Panchayats of the District.

Methodology adopted for Social Audit

• One Panchayat is selected randomly for the social audit covering all AWCs in the selected GP.
• The initiative is being implemented through SHGs and their federations.
• In every block two vocal, educated federation members are selected who can communicate to the rural womenfolk in their own language. A team is thus formed at Block level comprising two Federation members, one Community organizer and a Supervisor.
• Apart from this team a nodal SHG is identified in the village where AWC is located.
• All the Block level teams are being trained at District level and all nodal SHGs are being given orientation at block level.
• The methodology used was very simple and assessment of the function of the ICDS center was done using pictorial method to make it more interesting and reduce all type of biases. Each service delivery was divided into three part i.e. good , average and poor. Accordingly every women present was suppose to stick a bindi in front of the services in the color box which represented good , average and poor performance.
• In the beginning of every Social Audit all the womenfolk were briefed about the ICDS services which are being given through AWC in their locality . simultaneously, all their doubts and questions were answered by the team. After this exercise they were asked to access the performance of their center and stick a bindi as per their assessment of the service.

The whole process generated lot of enthusiasm. The audit is complete for all the 14 GPs and the data is being analyzed. After accessing the performance the same will be replicated with some modifications notices during the process.