Govt forms 8 Cabinet committees; security, appointments panels remain unchanged

The three new faces in the CCEA are Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Heavy Industries Minister H D Kumaraswamy, and Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying Minister Rajiv Ranjan ‘Lalan’ Singh.

The eight Cabinet Committees are the CCEA, ACC, CCS, Cabinet Committee on Accommodation, Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs, Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs, Cabinet Committee on Investment and Growth, and Cabinet Committee on Skill, Employment and Livelihood.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi heads six committees but is not part of two — Cabinet Committee on Accommodation and Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs.

The composition of the Cabinet committees released by the Cabinet Secretariat shows that the CCEA will now have 11 members, three more than the existing figure.

Besides Kumaraswamy, Lalan Singh and Chouhan, the CCEA members are PM Modi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Home Minister Shah, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal and Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

Lalan Singh is also a member of the Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs.

No change has been made in the powerful Appointments Committee, which is headed by Modi and where Shah is sole member.

Similarly, the composition of the CCS has been kept unchanged. Also headed by the Prime Minister, the CCS has the same four members — Rajnath, Shah, Sitharaman and Jaishankar.

Apart from Lalan Singh and Kumaraswamy, two other NDA partners — Food Processing Industries Minister Chirag Paswan and Jayant Chaudhary — have also been included in two committees. While Paswan has been made a member in the Cabinet Committee on Investment and Growth, Minister of State for Education Jayant Chaudhary has been included as a Special Invitee on the Cabinet Committee on Skill, Employment, and Livelihood.