NAC to be reconstituted soon

Pvt sector, govt to get representation; Sonia likely to remain chairperson.

The National Advisory Council (NAC) is set for an overhaul. The 12-member powerful advisory body, hitherto dominated by social activists and academics, will be reconstituted shortly to give representation to the private sector as also the government.

The idea is to broadbase its representative character by accommodating different viewpoints through inclusion of various stakeholders, highly placed sources in the Prime Minister's Office told Business Standard.

"UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi will most likely return to head it following the exemption of the NAC from the list of office of profit. There will be significant changes in the profile of its members, though," sources said.

The PMO is likely to start consultations with the Congress president to reconstitute the NAC after the Budget session of the Parliament is over.

As for the representation of the government in the Council, it is still not clear whether senior ministers or bureaucrats will be placed as members of this powerful body, which was set up to give inputs to the government on the implementation of the National Common Minimum Programme (NCMP).

The noble intention behind its constitution apart, the NAC had acquired the status of an 'extra-constitutional authority', as the Opposition NDA alleged, with the UPA chairperson as its head.

Although the advisory body was credited for many initiatives of the UPA government, like the implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and Right to Information Act, what often caused discomfiture in official circles was the apparent lack of understanding about the compulsions of governance by the zealous members of the NAC.

Much to the embarrassment of the government, many a time - Posco deal in Orissa, for instance - the NAC was found intervening through central ministries, in the economic policies of state governments.

Absence of representation from trade and industry also meant that the NAC tended to take a partisan view on crucial economic matters.

Meanwhile, there is uncertainty about the future of Jairam Ramesh in both the NAC as also in the UPA government. Through a Bill in the Parliament on Tuesday, the government exempted the post of NAC chairperson as an office of profit, but it was silent on the status of other NAC members. Jairam continues to be in both the Council of Ministers and the NAC.