As part of its mandate to promote cooperative federalism, NITI Aayog organized a meeting of a high level delegation from Himachal Pradesh and representatives from the various Ministries/Departments at the Center recently. The meeting was held under the Chairmanship of Dr. Arvind Panagariya. The Himachal Pradesh delegation was led by state Chief Secretary, VC Pharka.

The meeting came in the backdrop of the request made by the state Chief minister Virbhadra Singh in June this year. He had written to NITI Aayog enclosing a list of issues pending with the central ministries.

The discussions broadly covered the issues related to health, education, environment and forest, rural development, food and public distribution, water resources, culture, tourism, industry and textiles.

A number of issues were resolved at the meeting. On some of the issues, the Central Ministries requested the State Government to resubmit their proposals with requisite information and modifications. A few issues that were raised in the meeting pertained to policy decisions at the national level.

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