6.2. Cabinet Committees
To relieve the Cabinet of some burden of work, Cabinet committees have been set up. The N. Gopalaswamy Ayangar’s report on the Reorganization of the Machinery of Government (1949) recommended setting up of Standing Committees (permanent in nature) of Cabinet over defined fields, with appropriate strengthening of the secretariat and other organs of these committees. These were the instruments to ‘organise coordination on a decentralised basis’.
The Cabinet Committees should cover between them all important areas of government activity. It is also essential that they meet regularly so that sustained attention is given to complex problems and the progress of implementing important policies and programmes is kept under constant review.
The number and names of the Cabinet committees do not remain unchanged, as Ad-hoc committees are constituted from time to time to deal with certain problems and are disbanded after the completion of task. But three or four such committees have existed under all Governments in power at the Centre, namely
a) Political Affairs Committee: It is chaired by the Prime Minister. Its other members include the Home Minister, the Defence Minister, and the External Affairs Minister. The committee deals with all important matters relating to both internal developments and foreign relations.
b) Economic Affairs Committee: Its members are the Prime Minister (Chairman), Finance Minister, Rural Development Minister, and Industry Minister. Its main function is to direct and co-ordinate Governmental activities in the economic field and generally to regulate the working of the national economy.
c) Committee on Parliamentary Affairs: Its members include Information and Broadcasting Minister, Minister for Labour and Parliamentary Affairs, Law Minister, with the Home Minister as its chairman. The committee looks after the progress of Government business in Parliament to secure the smooth passage of legislation and determine the Government’s attitude to non-official Bills and resolutions coming up before Parliament.
d) Appointments Committee: The members of the Appointment Committee are the Prime Minister who is also its chairman, the Home Minister and the Minister concerned. It decides all higher-level appointments in the Central Secretariat, Public Enterprises, Banks, the three service chiefs etc. It also decides on the transfer of officers serving on Central deputation.
In 2019, the government set up two new Cabinet Committees: