The Union Government has reconstituted six Committees of the Cabinet, most of them playing key role in decision making and governance.
The reconstituted committees include Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, Committee on Accommodation, Committee on Economic Affairs, Committee on Parliamentary Affairs, Committee on Political Affairs and Committee on Security.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh are the two members of the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet. In the past the Committee had Minister incharge of the concerned Ministry related to the appointment as also its member.
Appointment Committee decides all higher-level appointments in the Central secretariat, public enterprises, banks and financial institutions. Of all the Cabinet Committees, the most powerful, the Political Affairs Committee, often described as a “Super-Cabinet”, is headed by the Prime Minister.
Other members of the committee include External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj; Finance and Defence Minister Arun Jaitley, Urban Development, Housing and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu, Road Transport and Highways, Shipping and Rural development Minister Nitin Gadkari; Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Minister Ram Vilas Paswan; law and Justice, Communications and Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad; Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju Pusapati; Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Minister Anant Geete and Food Processing Industries Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal..
The three NDA partners -- lok Janshakti Party (Paswan), Shiv Sena (Geete), Telugu Desam Party (Raju) -- have found place in the Political Affairs Committee.
Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) that has a decisive say on country’s Defence expenditure, matters of National Security, and makes significant appointments is headed by Prime Minister with Ministers of four key Ministries- Home, External Affairs, Defence and Finance as its members.
The Economic Affairs Committee, which directs and coordinates the governmental activities in the economic sphere including foreign investments, is headed by Modi with Rajnath, Swaraj, Jaitley again being its members.
The other Ministers in the committee are M Venkaiah Naidu, Nitin Gadkari; Railways Minister DV Sadananda Gowda, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Ashok Gajapathi Raju Pusapati, Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh.
Besides, there are Special Invitees to the committee -- including Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Power Piyush Goyal and Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman.
Rajnath Singh is at the head of Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs that looks after the progress of Government business in both Houses of Parliament.
Rajnath apart, Swaraj, Jaitley, Naidu, Minority Affairs Minister Dr Najma Heptullah, Ram Vilas Paswan, Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister Ananth Kumar and Ravi Shankar Prasad are other members in the Parliamentary Affairs Committee. Special invitees to the committee are Smriti Irani, Santosh Kumar Gangwar, Prakash Javadekar.
Cabinet Committee on Accommodation that decides on providing housing to all important dignitaries in the top hierarchy as also MPs is headed by Rajnath Singh with Jaitley, Naidu, Gadkari being its other members.