Inter-State Council

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair the eleventh meeting of the Inter-State Council in New Delhi on July 16. Article 263 of the Constitution has provided for the setting up of an Inter-State Council for investigation, discussion and recommendation for better coordination of relation between the Centre and the States. The Prime Minister is the Chairman of the Inter-State Council.

During the eleventh meeting of Inter-State Council, following issues will be discussed: i) Consideration of the recommendations of the Punchhi Commission on Centre-State relations; ii) Use of Aadhaar as an identifier and use of Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) for providing subsidies, benefits and Public services; iii) Improving quality of school education with focus on improving learning outcomes, incentivising better performance, and iv) Internal security 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 were held. 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.

The members of the Inter-State Council consist of 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 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. The tenth meeting of the Inter State Council was held on December 9, 2006 in New Delhi. The Inter State Council Secretariat, in collaboration with the Forum of Federations, Ministry of Environment and Forests, World Bank and TERI is organizing an International Conference on ‘Strengthening Green Federalism: Sharing International Practices’ in November this year.