Samajik Samikhya: a social audit process in panchayat in Orissa

This paper is a case study exploring the process of mobilising citizen action around the right to information. It documents a recent experience with a participatory social audit carried out with marginalized villages in Orissa under a less-than-transparent panchayat (local government). A campaign involving participatory action research, popular education, training and alliances among people's organisations, NGOs, sympathetic government officials and the media, led to exposure and prosecution of corrupt panchayat officials.