Central govt reconstitute inter-state council, PM Modi to lead affairs

|HT|

In order to promote and support cooperative federalism in the country, the central government has reconstituted the inter-state council, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the chairman and chief ministers of all states and six Union cabinet ministers as its members. According to an official notification issued last week, 10 Union ministers will also be permanent invitees to the inter-state council. The government has also reconstituted the standing committee of the council, with home minister Amit Shah as its chairman.

The Union ministers who have been made members of the council include Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nirmala Sitharaman, Narendra Singh Tomar, Virendra Kumar, Hardeep Singh Puri, Nitin Gadkari, S Jaishankar, Arjun Munda, Piyush Goyal, Dhamendra Pradhan, Pralhad Joshi, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Kiren Rijiju and Bhupender Yadav.

The inter-state council is a recommendatory body that has been empowered to investigate and discuss subjects of common interest between the Union and state(s), or among states, make recommendations for better coordination of policy and action on these subjects, and deliberate on matters of general interest to the states, which may be referred to it by its chairman. It also deliberates on other matters of general interest to the states as may be referred by the chairman to the council. The mandate of the council is to create a strong institutional framework to promote and support cooperative federalism in the country, and activate the council and zonal councils by organising regular meetings.

It also facilitates consideration of all pending and emerging issues of Centre-state and inter-state relations by the zonal councils and inter-state council, and develop a sound system to monitor the implementation of recommendations put forward by them.

In a separate notification, the Union home ministry said the composition of the standing committee of the inter-state council will include Amit Shah (chairman), and Union ministers Nirmala Sitharaman, Narendra Singh Tomar, Virendra Kumar and Gajendra Singh Shekhawat.

Chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh are also members of the standing committee of the council. The standing committee will hold continuous consultation and process matters for consideration of the council, and process all matters pertaining to Centre-state relations before they are taken up for consideration in the council.

The committee may, if necessary, invite experts and persons eminent in specific fields for their views, while also deliberate on related subjects.

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