Panels On Employment, Investment Figure Among Modi’s New Cabinet Committees

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NEW DELHI – The government on Thursday announced constitution of various cabinet committees, including on security, economic affairs, investment and employment.

It is perhaps for the first time that the cabinet committees on employment and investment have been set up, which is seen as the government’s acknowledgement of the problems.

Of the eight freshly constituted committees, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will head six of them, including Cabinet Committees on Security, Appointment, Political Affairs, Economic Affairs, Investment and Growth and Employment and Skill Development.

Announcing the decision, the government in an official release said that under the Transaction of Business Rules, the following cabinet committees on Appointments, Accommodation, Economic Affairs, Parliamentary Affairs, Political Affairs, Security, Investment and Growth and Employment and Skill Development had been constituted.

 

The Committee on Investment and Growth is headed by the Prime Minister and the other members in the panel are Home Minister Amit Shah, Highways and MSME Minister Nitin Gadkari, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal.

 

The other new committee on Employment and Skill Development headed by the Prime Minister will have Shah, Sitharaman, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, Goyal, HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Skill Development Minister Mahendra Nath Panday, Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar and Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri.

 

In this panel, Gadkari, Minister of Food Processing Industries Harsimrat Kaur Badal, Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani and Culture Minister Prahlad Patel are special invitees.

 

The key committee on security is headed by the Prime Minister and has its members Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Shah, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Sitharaman. The panel looks after the issues related to national security and foreign affairs.

 

The Appointments Committee of Cabinet (ACC) is to be headed by the Prime Minister with Shah as the other member. Shah will head the Cabinet Committee on Accommodation. Gadkari, Sitharaman and Goyal are its members. Minister of State in PMO Jitendra Singh and Puri are special invitees of the Accommodation committee.

 

The key Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) will be headed by the PM and will have Rajnath Singh, Shah, Gadkari, Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister DV Sadananda Gowda, Sitharaman, Tomar, Communication Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Harsimrat Badal as its members. The others in the CCEA include S Jaishankar, Goyal and Pradhan.

 

The Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs, which recommends dates for holding parliament sessions, is headed by Shah and has Sitharaman, Consumer Affairs Minister Ramvilas Paswan, Tomar, Prasad, Social Justice Minister Thawar Chand Gehlot, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Prahlad Joshi as its members. Ministers of State for Parliamentary Affairs Arjun Ram Meghwal and V Muraleedharan are special invitees.

 

The Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs, which helps the government take important policy decisions, will be headed by the Prime Minister. Shah, Gadkari, Sitharaman, Goyal, Paswan, Tomar, Prasad, Harsimrat, Health Minister Harshvardhan, Heavy Industries Minister Arvind Sawant and Joshi will be its members.