New Delhi, Jan. 7: The Centre plans to increase the representation of minorities in the National Integration Council, though it has rejected the Liberhan commission’s suggestion to give the panel statutory powers that would have made its recommendations binding.

The council, first convened in 1961 by then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, is meant to discuss all issues relating to national integration and evolve strategies to combat communalism, casteism and regionalism.

The NDA government had disbanded the council but the first Manmohan Singh government had revived it, with about 30 per cent of its 103 members coming from minority communities.

Sources said the council, whose tenure is ending, will now be reconstituted in such a way that its minority membership rises to somewhere between 30 and 40 per cent.

The Centre is finalising the names of the members, who will include eminent figures from a range of fields including politics, religion and business. Home minister P. Chidambaram has written to the proposed nominees seeking their acceptance, and an announcement is expected early next month, the sources said.

The Telegraph has learnt that the proposed names include those of Justice A.M. Ahmadi, Omar Abdullah, Salman Khurshid, Syed Shahabuddin, Asaduddin Owaisi, Shahid Lateef, Shabnam Hashmi, John Dayal, Ramdas M. Pai (president and chancellor, Manipal University), Valsan Thampu (St Stephen’s College principal), Roman Catholic Archbishop Vincent M.C. Concessao, Ratan Tata, Rahul Bajaj, N.R. Narayana Murthy and Kiran Mazumdar Shaw.

Former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee is also expected to be a part of the council.

So far, the council has had mainly symbolic significance. The outgoing council held 14 meetings, the last on October 13, 2008, following the attacks on Christians in Orissa and Karnataka and Maoist strikes across India. It had recommended a probe into the anti-Christian violence and the government had accepted the suggestion.

“The government may have rejected the Liberhan proposal to give statutory powers to the council, but it is good that it has increased the presence of minorities on the panel. It does send out positive signals,’’ a minority ministry official said.

The Centre had said Liberhan’s suggestion might not be practical. “The council has been set up primarily to act as a body to advise the government and other institutions of civil society,’’ the government had said in the action-taken report it placed in Parliament.

The Prime Minister is the chairman of the council, whose members include the ministers for home affairs, external affairs, finance, social justice and law. The chief ministers of all the states are ex-officio members too. The nominated members include trade and industry representatives and the presidents of all the national political parties.