New Delhi: The newly-constituted National Advisory Council (NAC) headed by Congress President Sonia Gandhi will have its first meeting here Thursday.
There is no structured agenda for the meeting which would primarily be introductory in nature, sources said.
The 14-member NAC was constituted on June 1 and is expected to advise the government on various social programmes like food security and rural development.
After the meeting, the members will call on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Gandhi, who had resigned from the NAC in March 2006 following office-of-profit controversy, was again named its Chairperson on March 29.
The members, representing experts from diverse fields, include Agricultural scientist M S Swaminathan and social activist Aruna Roy.
Music exponent and Rajya Sabha member (nominated) Ram Dayal Munda, Planning Commission member Narendra Jadhav, North-East Hill University Vice Chancellor Pramod Tandon and ecologist Madhav Gadgil are also members of the Council.
It also includes social worker Deep Joshi, businesswoman Anu Aga, women`s rights activist Farah Naqvi, former bureaucrat-turned-rights activist Harsh Mander, Mirai
Chatterjee of Ahmedabad-based SEWA (Self Employed Women`s Association), economist-activist Jean Dreze, retired bureaucrat N C Saxena and economist A K Shiva Kumar.
Roy, Dreze, Saxena and Shiva Kumar were members of the NAC during UPA-I.
Rita Sharma, an IAS officer, who retired as Rural Development Secretary earlier this year, has been appointed as Member Secretary.
The term of NAC members will be for one year but it could be extended.
Singh had earlier said that the NAC would introduce a "new dimension" to the working of the government by providing "very important inputs" that would impact the impulse of the civil society and people.
The NAC was first formed during UPA-1 and had played a role in the enactment of Right to Information Act, Forest Rights Act and National RuralEmployment Guarantee Act.
Bureau Report
