The government is all set to clear proposals to create posts for top babus in the reconstituted National Advisory Council (NAC), headed by Congress president and chairperson of UPA Sonia Gandhi.
Sources confirmed that the proposals from the ministry of programme implementation in regard to creation of posts of a secretary, an additional secretary and three joint secretaries for NAC are high on the agenda of the Union Cabinet, which will meet on Thursday.
“Once the posts will be created, senior bureaucrats would be posted to help Mrs Gandhi in discharging her functions as the head of the panel,” they added.
Though Mrs Gandhi is yet to finalise the names to be appointed as members of the council, the top babus have begun lobbying for posting in the NAC. “Knowing well that the NAC, once functional, would be a super government, as it will have its hold on ministries, there is a race among the bureaucrats to join the panel,” a senior civil servant said.
The reconstituted NAC has come into existence after almost four years since Mrs Gandhi quit the post of its chairpersonship following the office-of-profit controversy.
As chairperson, she will have the rank of a Cabinet minister with all secretarial support.
The NAC will allow Mrs Gandhi to once again play an upfront and proactive role in overseeing the UPA government’s flagship programmes and nudging it in pursuing the party’s “aam aadmi” agenda.
Packed with academics, experts and civil society representatives, Mrs Gandhi-led NAC-I is credited with virtually guiding the social sector agenda of the last UPA government and was often referred to as the “super cabinet”.
It had provided vital inputs on key legislations like the Right to Information Act and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and had been instrumental in pushing the government in incorporating its suggestions in the final reading of these laws.