As a part of its mandate to promote cooperative federalism, The NITI Aayog held a meeting of senior officials from the state of Telangana and six Central Ministries to resolve a number of outstanding issues of the state vis-à-vis the ministries. The two-hour meeting on 28th January 2016 was chaired by Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog. It experimented with a new approach to the resolution of issues between states and central ministries by bringing the two sides face-to-face with the Vice Chairman actively nudging them towards a possible solution.

 About 20 important issues flagged by State Government relating to Ministries of Coal and Power, Petroleum& Natural Gas; Environment, Forests & Climate Change, Culture, Finance and Rural Development were discussed. At the end of the meeting, nearly all but two or three issues could be resolved to the satisfaction of both sides. Substantial progress was made even on issues that could not be brought to full resolution during the meeting. Shri T. Ramachandru, Special Representative and Shri Pradeep Chandra, Special Chief Secretary, Finance, Telangana expressed deep satisfaction at the outcome of the meeting and was appreciative of the initiative by NITI Aayog. Based on the success of this experience, the Aayog stands ready to work with other interested states to help debottleneck their projects and programs. In future meetings, it also intends to take up implementation or other issues the central ministries face in the states and require action by the latter.

Cooperative federalism used to resolve intergovernmental implementation issues through ministry-state meetings, vice chairman facilitating negotiated solutions. Cooperative federalism was operationalised through a structured intergovernmental meeting that brought state officials and multiple central ministries into direct, facilitated discussions to resolve outstanding administrative and implementation issues; most matters were resolved or substantially advanced, and the Aayog positioned the model as replicable for debottlenecking projects and assisting with ministry implementation needs.