Centre revamps inter-state panel with PM as head

New Delhi: The Centre has reconstituted the Inter-State Council which would be headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as its chairman along with some Central ministers and all chief ministers as the members. The primary task of the council is to look into disputes between various states and come up with solutions as to how these can be resolved.

The members of the newly-constituted council include home minister Rajnath Singh, finance minister Arun Jaitley, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman, minister for road transport Nitin Gadkari and social justice minister Thaawar Chand Gehlot.

In addition, all CMs of states and Union Territo-ries that have legislative assemblies will also be members of the new council.

Apart from this, the council will also have at least eight other Union ministers as permanent invitees. Theses are commerce minister Suresh Prabhu, Ramvilas Pasw-an minister for food&civil supplies, food processing minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Jual Oram, minister for tribal affairs, Prakash Javadekar who heads HRD, petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan and railway minister Piyush Goyal.

According to Article 263, the Constitution provides for setting up of an Inter-State Council which is authorised to investigate into and provide suitable suggestions on disputes between different states. The Council also looks into various issues with common interest among states, Union Territories or Centre.

The council is supposed to provide recommendations on such disputes which would in turn ensure better and smooth co-ordination of policy and action.

The Centre has also reconstituted the Standing Committee of Council which would be headed by the home as its chairman.

The members of the Standing Committee includes four Union ministers and seven Chief Ministers as its members. The central Ministers are Ms Swaraj, Mr Jaitley, Mr Gadkari and Mr Gehlot while the Chief Ministers are N Chandrababu Naidu from Andhra Pradesh, Amarinder Singh of Punjab, Raman Singh from Chhattisgarh, Manik Sarkar of Tripura, Naveen Patnaik of Odisha, Vasundhara Raje from Rajasthan and Yogi Adityanath from Uttar Pradesh.

This Committee will have deliberations and refer issues to the Inter State Council after a thorough processing. It will also supervise implementation of decisions taken on the Council’s recommendations and even examine other issues that the Council may refer to it.

The Standing Committee would also be mandated to invite experts and other persons eminent in their respective fields to seek their opinion on specialised subjects.