Inter State Council Reconstituted by the Government of India
Government has reconstituted Inter-State Council and Standing Committee of ISC
The government has reconstituted the ISC and its standing committee. The Council is mandated with creating a strong institutional framework to promote and support cooperative federalism. The council is reconstituted to activate the council and zonal councils by conducting regular meetings. It will facilitate consideration of all pending and emerging issues between Centre and State and Inter-state relations by the zonal councils and inter-state council.
Article 263 of the Indian Constitution states that the President from time to time may constitute Inter-State Council as and when required. The Inter-State Council was set up on the recommendations of Sarkaria Commission.
Inter-State Council is a recommendatory body which is empowered to investigate and discuss the matters of common interest between the Union and State or between two or more states. The Council should meet at least three times in a year.
Composition of reconstituted Inter State Council:
Chairman: Prime Minister Narendra Modi
Other members: Chief Ministers of all States and UTs with a legislative assembly and six union ministers. Also, administrators of UTs without legislative assembly are members of this council.
Permanent Invitees: Ten union ministers
List of 16 Union Ministers who are part of Inter State Council:
- Nitin Gadkari
- Amit Shah
- Arjun Munda
- Kiren Rijiju
- Virendra Kumar
- Ashwini Vaishnaw
- Rajnath Singh
- S Jaishankar
- Nirmala Sitharaman
- Piyush Goyal
- Dharmendra Pradhan
- Pralhad Joshi
- Hardeep Singh Puri
- Gajendra Shekhawat
- Narendra Singh Tomar
- Bhupender Yadav
Apart from the council, the standing committee of the Inter-State Council has also been reconstituted.
Composition of the reconstituted standing committee:
Chairman: Union Home Minister Amit Shah
Members: Union ministers- Nirmala Sitharaman, Narendra Singh Tomar, Virendra Kumar, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, and Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh.
Functions of Standing Committee
The committee will process all matters related to centre-state relations before they are discussed in the inter-state council. The committee will also monitor the implementation of the decisions taken on the recommendations of the inter-state council.
