To promote cooperative federalism, Centre rejigs inter-state council

New Delhi, May 24: The Central Government has reconstituted the inter-state council with Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the chairman. The council would comprise chief ministers of all states and six Union Cabinet ministers as members.

The decision was taken to promote and support cooperative federalism.

The official notification that was released last week says that 10 Union Ministers will also be permanent invitees to the inter-state council. Further the government reconstituted the standing committee of the council with Union Home Minister, Amit Shah as the chairman.

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 have been made members of the council.

The inter-state council is empowered to investigate and discuss subjects of common interest between the Union and States or among states. It also makes recommendations for better coordination of policy and action on these submits. It also deliberates on matters of general interest to the states as may be referred by the chairman of the council.

In another notification, the Union Home Ministry said that the composition of the standing committee of the inter-state council will include, Amit Shah as chairman, Union ministers Nirmala Sitharaman, Narendra Singh Tomar, Virendra Kumar and Gajendra Singh Shekhawat.

The members of the council are the Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.