Home Minister to be the new ex-officio chairman of North Eastern Council, DONER Minister to be the Vice Chairman 

Prime Minister had called for a meeting with the Council of Minister which was held in Delhi today. PM met the Council of Ministers after a gap of seven months and the agenda of the meeting was to analyse the recent setbacks in bypolls and the way ahead.

After the meeting Piyush Goyal, Finance and Railway minister of India addressed the media and announced that the Home Minister will now head the North Eastern Council as the ex-officio chairman. Till now the Ministry for Development of North Eastern Region (DONER) was looking after the council, and the DONER Minister was the chairman, who in the new system will be the vice-chairman of the Council.

Goyal added that North Eastern Council is a very important body for the Government of India as it executes various government schemes in constant coordination with both State and Central Governments. He mentioned that Prime Minister Modi advised this move and with Home Minister being directly involved into the matter, apart from developmental activities, the Council will also manage to handle the inter state issues (aapsi masle) better. Goyal was of the opinion that this move will help develop North Eastern Council as a formidable unit in the region, which will manage to sort out long pending issues. He added that the Council will continue to suggest steps and methods to grow and develop the North Eastern States, and move all of the States in one direction. The newly appointed Finance Minister added that the Central government will continue to empower the Council in order to ensure better development of the North Eastern States.

The changes in the social and planning body of North East right before the publication of NRC draft has raised many eyebrows. The sources in the Ministry inform that the decision was taken after taking all the recent activities including the Assam-Mizoram face-off in Kachurtal Hailakandi into account.