Speed Post News Network
New Delhi: PM Narendra Modi will chair the eleventh meeting of the Inter-State Council here on Saturday. The Union Ministers and Chief Ministers of all states are expected to attend the meeting. The Prime Minister is the Chairman of the Inter-State Council.
The Inter-State Council will discuss the recommendations of the Punchhi Commission on Centre-State relations, use of Aadhaar as an identifier and use of Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) for providing subsidies, benefits and Public services, improving quality of school education with focus on improving learning outcomes, incentivising better performance, and internal security, according to a PIB release.
The Inter-State Council Secretariat, under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Government of India, also organises the Zonal Council meetings under the chairmanship of Union Home Minister. In 2015, all the five Zonal Council meetings namely East, Central, North, West and South have been held in that order. Apart from this, the meeting of North Eastern Council (NEC) with all the Chief Ministers of the North Eastern States was held under the Chairmanship of Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh. During the current year, the Eastern Zonal Council meeting was chaired by Home Minister Rajnath Singh in Ranchi, Jharkhand, on June 27, 2016. During these meetings, the subjects such as economic and social sectors, infrastructure, health, security related matters and various other developmental schemes were discussed by Rajnath Singh with the chief ministers concerned and other participants.
The members of the Inter-State Council comprise the chief ministers of all states, chief ministers of Union Territories having a Legislative Assembly and Administrators of UTs not having a Legislative Assembly, Six Union Ministers and eleven Union Cabinet Ministers/Minister of State (Independent Charge) as permanent invitees. The six Union Ministers: Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, M Venkaiah Naidu, Nitin Jairam Gadkari and Manohar Parrikar are the members of the Inter- State Council. Union Ministers Suresh Prabhu, D V Sadananda Gowda, Ramvilas Paswan, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Jual Oram, Thaawar Chand Gehlot, Smriti Zubin Irani, Dharmendra Pradhan, Piyush Goyal and Nirmala Sitharaman are the permanent invitees to the Inter-State Council.