Hyderabad: The Inter-state Council will discuss the role of Governor in its standing committee meeting scheduled on April 9, in wake of actions and decisions of Governors of several states creating controversy.
Among the Chief Ministers attending the meeting would be N. Chandrababu Naidu. The meeting is being held after a gap of 11 years and on the agenda is the Punchhi Commission report on Centre-state relations and role of Governors.
It may be mentioned here that the Commission had said: “The practice of treating Governors as political footballs must stop”. The report recommended Chief Ministers have a say in the appointment of Governors.
Union ministers Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, M. Venkaiah Naidu and Nitin Gadkari, Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tripura and Uttar Pradesh are members of the standing committee.
The Punchhi Commission was constituted in 2005 and submitted its report in 2010. The commission focused on Centre-state relations, Constitutional governance and management of Centre-state relations, Centre-state financial relations and planning, local self-governments and decentralised governance, internal security, criminal justice and Centre-state cooperation and other issues.
As per the agenda for the April 9 meeting received by the AP government, the role of Governors, Centrally-sponsored schemes and financial transfers from the Centre to states, creation of a unified agricultural market for the nation, measures to involve the states more closely in planning and delivery of services, steps to be adopted to make the Inter-state Council more vibrant and measures directed towards better fiscal management by the Centre and the states will be taken up.
