| Committee on External Affairs | |
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| Above: | Department Related Standing Committee |
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| Header: | 18th Lok Sabha |
| Subheader: | 18th Lok Sabha |
| Label3: | Founded |
| Label4: | Country |
| Data4: |  India |
| Header5: | Leadership |
| Label6: | Chaiperson |
| Data6: | Shashi Tharoor |
| Label7: | Chairperson party |
| Data7: | Indian National Congress |
| Label8: | Appointer |
| Data8: | Lok sabha Speaker |
| Header9: | Structure |
| Label10: | Seats |
| Data10: | 31 Lok Sabha : 21 Rajya Sabha : 10 |
| Label11: | Political Parties |
| Data11: | |
| Label12: | Election criteria |
| Data12: | The members are elected every year from amongst its members of respective houses according to the principle of proportional representation. |
| Label13: | Tenure |
| Data13: | 1 Year |
| Header14: | Jurisdiction |
| Label15: | Purpose |
| Data15: | Legislative oversight of the defence policies and decision making of the Ministry of Defence (MOD) |
| Header18: | Rules & Procedure |
| Label20: | Applicable rules |
| Data20: | Rule 331 C through N (page 122 - 125) Fifth Schedule (page 158)--> |
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.
The committee is currently headed by MP Shashi Tharoor since 26 September 2024.[1]
Each of the committees have 31 members – 21 from Lok Sabha and 10 from Rajya Sabha. 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 External Affairs.[2]
Keys: = 31 members
| 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 | |||
| 6 | Balasaheb Vikhe Patil | 2004-08 | 4 | INC | ||
| 7 | Satpal Maharaj | 2008-11 | 4 | |||
| 8 | Raj Babbar | 2012-14 | 2 | |||
| 9 | 2014-17 | 3 | BJP | |||
| 10 | Kalraj Mishra | 2017-19 | 2 --> | |||
| 11 | P. P. Chaudhary[3] | 2021–2024 | 1 | |||
| 12 | Shashi Tharoor | 2024 – present | INC | |||
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.[4] 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.[5]
| Lok Sabha | Tenure | Demands for Grants(DFGs) | Subjects | Bills | ATRs | Total Reports Presented | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1991–96 | 3 | 2 | – | 3 | 8 | ||
| 11th Lok Sabha | 1996–97 | 2 | - | 2 | 2 | 6 | |
| 12th Lok Sabha | 1998–99 | 2 | 4 | - | 2 | 8 | |
| 1999–04 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 12 | 21 | ||
| 2004–09 | 5 | 14 | 2 | 15 | 36 | ||
| 2009–14 | 2 | 1 | - | 2 | 5 | ||
| 2014–2019 | |||||||
| 2019-2024 |