NITI governing council to be chaired by PM: Telangana CM won't attend meeting

NEW DELHI: On Sunday, the NITI Aayog's seventh Governing Council meeting, which will cover a variety of topics including agricultural diversification, urban governance, and the execution of the National Education Policy, will be presided over by Prime Minister Narendra Modi (NEP).

All chief ministers, lieutenant governors of Union Territories, and a number of Union ministers are represented on the Council, which is the top body of NITI Aayog.

The chairman of NITI Aayog is the prime minister.

After July 2019, this will be the Council's first physical meeting.

The meeting's agenda includes crop diversification, achieving self-sufficiency in oilseeds, pulses, and agri-communities, putting the National Education Policy into practice, and urban governance. It will be held at the Rashtrapati Bhawan Cultural Centre.

K Chandrasekhar Rao, the chief minister of Telangana, informed the prime minister on Saturday that he would not attend the meeting in protest of the current "discriminatory" policy of the Central government towards the states.

In a strongly-worded letter to Modi, KCR, as Rao is known, said India as a strong nation can develop only when the states develop.

Strong and economically vibrant states alone can make India a strong country, he said.

Several problems, including a legal guarantee to the minimum support price (MSP) for crops, would be brought up at the conference, according to Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann.

He claimed that any representative from Punjab would attend the NITI Aayog conference for the first time in three years.

Punjab was one of the four states that missed the February 2021 meeting of the Governing Council.

Meanwhile, NITI Aayog termed the Telangana chief minister's decision to boycott the Governing Council meeting 'unfortunate'.

"It is unfortunate that the Chief Minister of Telangana has chosen not to participate in the Governing Council meeting of NITI Aayog to be held on August 7," the Aayog said while dismissing the charges levelled by Rao.

According to an official statement issued on Friday, in the drive towards building a steady, sustainable and inclusive India, the seventh Governing Council meeting of NITI Aayog will pave the way for synergies towards a new era of collaboration and cooperation between the Centre and states/Union Territories.

"The meeting would also lay emphasis on the importance of the Presidency for India for the federal system and the role that states can play in highlighting their progress at the G-20 Platform," the statement had said.

As part of preparations for the meeting, the National Conference of Chief Secretaries was held in Dharamshala in June 2022.

The conference was chaired by the prime minister and attended by the chief secretaries of all states and UTs, along with senior officials of the central and state governments.

The 7th Governing Council meeting will endeavour to finalise a roadmap and outcome-oriented action plan on each of the above themes, the statement added.

Generally, the full council meeting happens every year and last year, it was held on February 20.

At the most recent Governing Council meeting, the chief ministers of West Bengal, Punjab, Telangana, and Gujarat were absent.

Due to health issues, Vijay Rupani, who was then the chief minister of Gujarat, also skipped the meeting.

2020 had no council meeting because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The council's initial meeting was held on February 8, 2015.

Source-PTI