Committee on External Affairs

Committee on External Affairs
Department Related Standing Committee
17th Lok Sabha
Country	India
Leadership
Chaiperson	P. P. Chaudhary
Chairperson party	BJP
Appointer	Lok sabha Speaker
Structure
Seats	31; Lok Sabha : 21 ; Rajya Sabha : 10

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs is a department related standing committee (DRSC) of selected members of parliament, constituted by the Parliament of India, for the purpose of legislative oversight of the foreign policy, and decision making of the Ministry of External Affairs. It is one of the 24 DRSCs that have been mandated with the task of ministry specific oversight.

As of 2022, The committee currently is headed by MP P. P. Chaudhary.[1]

Current Composition

Each of the committees have 31 members – 21 from Lok Sabha and 10 from Rajya Sabha.[1] These members are to be nominated by the Speaker of Lok Sabha or the Chairman of Rajya Sabha respectively. The term of office of these committees does not exceed one year. These committees are serviced either by Lok Sabha secretariat or the Rajya Sabha secretariat, depending on who has appointed the chairman of that committee.

Following are the members of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs.[2]

Lok Sabha members

21 Members from 16th Lok Sabha; tenure – September 2021 – 2022
Sr. No.	Name	Constituency, state
1	P. P. Chaudhary^{[lower-alpha 1]}	Pali, Rajasthan	BJP
2	Harsimrat Kaur Badal	Bhatinda, Punjab	SAD
3	Abhishek Banerjee	Diamond Harbour, West Bengal	TMC
4	Kalyan Banerjee	Shreerampur, West Bengal	TMC
5	Harsh Vardhan		BJP
6	Dileshwar Kamait		JD(U)
7	Suresh Kumar Kashyap		BJP
8	Preneet Kaur		INC
9	Goddeti Madhavi
10	Manne Srinivas Reddy	Mahabubnagar, Telangana	TRS
11	P. C. Mohan		BJP
12	Queen Oja		BJP
13	Ritesh Pandey
14	K. C. Patel		BJP
15	N.K. Premachandran
16	Navneet Ravi Rana
17	Soyam Babu Rao
18	Rebati Tripura		BJP
19	Poonam (Mahajan) Vajendla Rao		BJP
20	Vacant
21	Vacant

Rajya Sabha members

10 Members from the Rajya Sabha: tenure – September 2021 – 2022
Sr. No.	Name	State Legislature	Party	Party status
1	K. J. Alphons	Rajasthan	BJP	Government
2	Jaya Bachchan	Uttar Pradesh	SP	Opposition
3	Misha Bharti	Bihar	RJD	Opposition
4	Brijlal	Uttar Pradesh	BJP	Government
5	P. Chidambaram	Maharashtra	INC	Opposition
6	Swapan Dasgupta	West Bengal	BJP	Government
7	Prakash Javadekar[1]	Maharashtra	BJP	Government
8	Sanjay Raut[1]	Maharashtra	SS	Opposition
9	Kapil Sibal	Uttar Pradesh	INC	Opposition
10	K. Somaprasad	Kerala	CPIM	Opposition

Chairpersons

Chairpersons of the committee (1993-till date)

Sr. No.	Name	Term of office	Terms	Political party (Alliance)
1	Buta Singh	1993-95	2	INC
2	No Public records found	1995-98	3
3	Kamal Chaudhary	1998-99	1	INC
4	Laxminarayan Pandey	1999-2002	3	BJP
5	Madan Lal Khurana	2002-04	2	BJP
6	Balasaheb Vikhe Patil	2004-08	4	INC
7	Satpal Maharaj	2008-11	4
8	Raj Babbar	2012-14	2
9	Maj Gen. BC Khanduri (Retd.)	2014-17	3	BJP
10	Kalraj Mishra	2017-19	2 -->
11	P. P. Chaudhary[1]	2021–Present	1

Reports published

As part of its oversight process, the committee has published quite a number of reports over the course of its existence. The committee has published a total of 87 reports from 1993 to 2010. Out of these, 18 are reports on Demands for Grants (DFGs), 25 reports on subjects taken up by the committee, 5 reports on bills referred to the committee and 36 are reports on action taken by the government on corresponding reports of the committee.

In March 2023, the committee in its Demand for Grants (2023–24) report, criticized the ministry for being "most short-staffed" and under-budgeted. The committee highlighted that The total strength of 4,888 is distributed across different cadres of the Ministry such as the Indian Foreign Service (IFS), IFS General Cadre, IFS Group B, Stenographers Cadre, Interpreters Cadre, Legal and Treaties Cadre, among others. The cadre strength of Indian Foreign Service Officers is only 1,011, just 22.5 percent of the total strength. Out of IFS 'A' cadre, 667 are posted at the Missions abroad and 334 are manning the headquarters in Delhi, which currently has 57 divisions.[3] The committee also highlighted that the ministry “remains one amongst the least funded central ministries” as its actual annual spending has been around 0.4% of the total budgetary allocation of the government since 2020-21.[4]

Lok Sabha	Tenure	Demands for Grants(DFGs)	Subjects	Bills	ATRs	Total Reports Presented
10th Lok Sabha	1991–96	3	2	–	3	8
11th Lok Sabha	1996–97	2	-	2	2	6
12th Lok Sabha	1998–99	2	4	-	2	8
13th Lok Sabha	1999–04	4	4	1	12	21
14th Lok Sabha	2004–09	5	14	2	15	36
15th Lok Sabha	2009–14	2	1	-	2	5
16th Lok Sabha	2014–2019
17th Lok Sabha	2019-204

–

References

Chairperson of the committee for the current year.

"Parliament Panels Reconstituted, Congress Leaders Retained As Chairmen". NDTV.com. 10 October 2021. Retrieved 8 January 2022.
"Committee on External Affairs : Loksabha". loksabhaph.nic.in. Retrieved 20 January 2022.
"'Indian diplomatic service most short-staffed compared to many other countries': Parliamentary panel". The New Indian Express. Retrieved 8 April 2023.
"Parliamentary panel for ramping up manpower and funding for MEA". Hindustan Times. 21 March 2023. Retrieved 8 April 2023.

External links

Committee on External Affairs on Lok Sabha Website

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[3] Chairperson of the committee for the current year.

[Reconstituted_October_2021-1] "Parliament Panels Reconstituted, Congress Leaders Retained As Chairmen". NDTV.com. 10 October 2021. Retrieved 8 January 2022.

[Committee_on_External_Affairs-2] "Committee on External Affairs : Loksabha". loksabhaph.nic.in. Retrieved 20 January 2022.

[4] "'Indian diplomatic service most short-staffed compared to many other countries': Parliamentary panel". The New Indian Express. Retrieved 8 April 2023.

[CoEA_2023-5] "Parliamentary panel for ramping up manpower and funding for MEA". Hindustan Times. 21 March 2023. Retrieved 8 April 2023.