Zeenews Bureau
New Delhi: The Prime Minister’s Office has finalised the names of 11 members of the National Advisory Council, the consultative body chaired by Congress president Sonia Gandhi that is intended to serve as an interface between the government and civil society.
As per reports Monday, the team has been carefully constituted taking into consideration their usefulness in pushing forward the social welfare programmes of UPA-II.
Besides, Sonia Gandhi, the new team includes Madhab Gadgil, Harsh Mander, MS Swaminathan, Aruna Roy, Jean Dreze, NC Saxena, Farha Naqvi, Anu Aga, Narendra Jadhav, Deep Joshi and AK Shivkumar.
The government aims to benefit from the expertise and experience of these individuals, who have carved a niche for themselves in their respective fields.
The civil society heavyweights have all advocated for a more inclusive growth policy and a wider social security net. Clearly, important initiatives on food security, education and public health are likely to be at the centre stage of the NAC’s activities.
In its earlier avatar, the NAC had been instrumental in highly successful social sector reforms such as introduction of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and the Right to Information Act.
