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The central government has directed Haryana to hold DISHA Committee meetings independently, four months after the state government ordered holding meetings of the District Level Grievance Redressal Committee and the DISHA Committee simultaneously.
The Centre, however, said the joint meetings “may not be in conformity with the mandate of DISHA committees”.
The Centre’s directions came after Ambala Congress MP Varun Chaudhary raised objections to the state’s July instructions.
Speaking with The Indian Express on Wednesday, Chaudhary said this (the state’s July instructions) was apparently an attempt to “undermine powers of Members of Parliament in their respective constituencies, even as the Congress has as many Lok Sabha members as the ruling BJP (five each) from Haryana.”
Both meetings have distinct mandates, Chaudhary said. “The DISHA committee meetings, chaired by a state minister, monitor the central-sponsored schemes, while the Grievances Committee meetings, chaired by the MP concerned, are primarily for listening to individuals’ grievances.”
In July, the Haryana Development and Panchayats Department had instructed all deputy commissioners that both meetings would be convened on the same day and attended by both the minister and the MP. The department also issued a rotational schedule for all districts up to August 2026, which a section of Congress leaders viewed as an “encroachment on the rights of MPs”.
In a letter to Union Rural Development Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on September 25, Chaudhary termed the state’s instructions “totally against the guidelines issued by the Union Ministry of Rural Development and the federal system”. Chaudhary wrote, “It’s also not practical for a minister and an MP to be available on the same day as a DISHA meeting takes six to eight hours.”
Seeking Chouhan’s intervention, Chaudhary warned, “The directions issued by the government of Haryana will lead to non-functioning of the DISHA Committee, and the objective of improvement in infrastructure, human development, and well-being of the people will get impaired.”
On November 6, Chouhan informed Chaudhary that his ministry had written to the Haryana government “to ensure DISHA meetings are convened independently, in line with the guidelines, for effective monitoring of central programmes”. “I hope to get your continued support in strengthening the DISHA monitoring system and for achieving the intended objective of the DISHA committee,” Chouhan added.
In its communication to the state, the Union ministry underlined that ‘convening DISHA meetings jointly with other committees may not be in conformity with the mandate of DISHA committees since they involve detailed review and discussion on multiple central schemes often lasting several hours”.
It further noted that joint convening “may not be practically feasible and could adversely affect the quality and focus of deliberations”.
The ministry clarified that under the guidelines, Lok Sabha MPs are nominated as chairpersons of DISHA committees and their meetings are to be convened with the approval of the chairperson concerned.
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