• The Inter-State Council has been reconstituted with Prime Minister Narendra Modi as its chairman, all Chief Ministers and nine Union ministers as members and 13 Union ministers as permanent invitees.

• The vision of the council is to work for Centre-State and interstate coordination and cooperation besides creating a strong institutional framework to promote and support cooperative federalism in the country.

• According to a notification issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs, Union ministers belonging to NDA allies Janata Dal (United), Janata Dal (Secular), Telugu Desam Party and Lok Janshakti Party are part of the reconstituted council.

• Prime Minister Modi will be the chairman, Chief Ministers of all states and Union Territories having a legislative assembly and administrators of Union Territories not having a legislative assembly will be members of the high-powered committee.

• Members of the council include Union ministers Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Jagat Prakash Nadda, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Nirmala Sitharaman, Manohar Lal Khattar, Rajiv Ranjan Singh, Virendra Kumar and Kinjarapu Rammohan Naidu.

• Permanent invitees of the council are Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, H.D. Kumaraswamy, Piyush Goyal, Dharmendra Pradhan, Jitan Ram Manjhi, Jual Oram, Ashwini Vaishnaw, Bhupender Yadav, Kiren Rijiju, G Kishan Reddy, Chirag Paswan and C.R. Patil.

Inter-State Council

• Article 263 of the Constitution envisages establishment of an institutional mechanism for coordination of policies and their implementation among its constitutional units.

• Accordingly, the Inter-State Council (ISC) was set up through a Presidential Order on May 28, 1990.

• The Prime Minister is the chairman of the Council. 

• Chief Ministers of all states and Union Territories (UTs) having Legislative Assemblies, Administrators of UTs not having Legislative Assemblies, governors of states under President’s Rule and Union ministers nominated by the chairman are members of the Council. 

• The Inter-State Council Secretariat was set up in 1991. The Council Secretariat monitors the implementation of the recommendations made by the ISC, and places the Action Taken Report before the Standing Committee/ISC for consideration.

Why was the Inter-State Council formed?

• The Constitution provides for a polity, which clearly defines spheres of authority between the Union and states to be exercised in the fields assigned to them. Consistent with this, the Constitution has made an elaborate distribution of powers between the Union and states in the areas of legislative, administrative and financial powers. 

• The subject of Legislative Power has, accordingly, been classified into three Lists – Union List (List I), State List (List II) and the Concurrent List (List III) in the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution. 

• Residuary powers of legislation have been vested in Parliament. The Union government has, from time to time, taken steps to look into the contentious issues between the Centre and states in the areas of distribution of powers.

• The Union government constituted a Commission in 1988 under the chairmanship of Justice R.S. Sarkaria to review the working of the existing arrangements between the Union and states. 

• One of the important recommendations of Sarkaria Commission was for establishing a permanent Inter-State Council as an independent national forum for consultation with a mandate well defined in accordance with Article 263 of the Constitution of India. 

• Pursuant to the recommendation, the Inter-State Council was set up in 1990.

Functions of the ISC

• The ISC has been assigned the duties of investigating and discussing such subjects in which some or all of the states, or the Union and one or more of the states have a common interest, and to make recommendations for better coordination of policy and action with respect to that subject. 

• It deliberates upon such other matters of general interest of the states as may be referred to by the chairman to the Council.

• The mandate of the Council is to create a strong institutional framework to promote and support cooperative federalism in the country, and activate the Council and Zonal Councils by organising regular meetings.

• It also facilitates consideration of all pending and emerging issues of the Centre-state and inter-state relations by the Zonal Councils and ISC and develops a sound system of monitoring the implementation of the recommendations of the ISC and Zonal Councils.

Standing Committee of the Inter-State Council

• The Standing Committee of ISC was constituted in 1996 for continuous consultation and processing of matters for the consideration of the Council. 

• The Union Home Minister is the chairman of the Standing Committee.

• The revised committee structure aims to enhance coordination and effectiveness in addressing inter-state matters across the country.

• The committee comprises 12 members. Union Ministers Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Nirmala Sitharaman, Rajiv Ranjan Singh, Virendra Kumar and CR Patil as well as Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh are part of the Standing Committee of the Inter-State Council.

• The Standing Committee will have continuous consultation and process matters for consideration of the Council;

• The Standing Committee will have continuous consultation and process matters for consideration of the Council, process all matters pertaining to Centre-state relations before they are taken up for consideration in the ISC.

• The Standing Committee also monitors the implementation of the decisions taken on the recommendations of the Council and considers any other matter referred to it by the chairman or the Council.

• The Standing Committee may, if necessary, invite experts and persons eminent in specific fields to have the benefit of their views while deliberating upon the related subjects.

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants.)