Chhattisgarh on Friday agreed to the recommendations of the Punchhi Commission on Centre-State relations regarding environment, natural resources and infrastructure, officials informed.
The nod was given at the standing committee of inter-state council meeting at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi.
The meeting was chaired by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and was attended by Union Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, Union Finance Minister Piyush Goyal, Union law Minister Ravishankar Prasad and other Union and State-level ministers.
During the meeting, Chhattisgarh Commercial Tax Minister Amar Agrawal apprised the standing committee about the recommendations made by the state on issues related to socio-economic development, public policies and good governance.
The standing committee had sought state government's stand on recommendations made on volume 6 and 7 of Punchhi Commission report.
Chhattisgarh Chief Secretary Ajay Singh and Chhattisgarh's Resident Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Ojha were present at the meeting.
Notably, the Standing Committee of the Inter-State Council (ISC) headed by the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh completed the onerous task of deliberations on all the 273 recommendations of the Punchhi Commission. Today's meeting was the 13th meeting of the Standing Committee of the ISC.
In his opening remarks, while welcoming the members and participants, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh recalled that during the previous two meetings of the Standing Committee of the ISC held last year thorough deliberations were held on the recommendations contained in Volumes II to V of the Punchhi Commission’s Report.
He informed the meeting that today’s discussions will focus on the remaining two volumes i.e. VI & VII, that contained a total of 88 recommendations.
In today’s meeting, the Standing Committee examined in detail various recommendations of the Punchhi Commission contained in these two volumes. The recommendations in Volume VI of the Punchhi Commission report are related to Environment, Natural Resources and Infrastructure and cover the subjects on (a) Environment; (b) Water; (c) Forests; (d) Minerals and (e) Infrastructure.
The recommendations in Volume VII related to Socio-economic Development, Public Policy and Good Governance and cover the subjects on (a) Public Policy, Constitutional Governance and Public Administration; (b) Socio-political Developments and its Impact on Governance; (c) Basic Needs of People, Directive Principles and State Accountability, Centrally Sponsored Development Schemes and Federal Relations; (d) Migration, Human Development and Challenges to Constitutional Governance; and (e) Good Governance and Delivery of Public Services.
It may be noted that the Punchhi Commission notified in 2005 submitted its report in 2010. The recommendations of the Punchhi Commission, which are contained in seven Volumes pertain to History of Centre-State Relations in India; Constitutional Governance and Management of Centre-State Relations; Centre-State Financial Relations and Planning; local Self-Governments and Decentralized Governance; Internal Security, Criminal Justice and Centre-State Cooperation; Environment, Natural Resources & Infrastructure; and Socio-Economic Development, Public Policy and Good Governance.
The issues have been analysed in the Inter-State Council Secretariat. The 67 recommendations in Volume II on ‘Constitutional Governance and the Management of Centre-State Relations’ of the report were considered by the Standing Committee in its 11th meeting held on 9.4.2017.
A total of 118 recommendations contained in Volumes III, IV & V of the Punchhi Commission's Report were considered by the Standing Committee in its 12th meeting held on November 25, 2017.