In a two-hour meeting held at Sahyadri, the State Government guest house at Malabar Hill, the Chief Minister announced that apart from himself, senior Congress leader Sharad Pawar, N D Patil, Prof Ram Kapse and Kishor Patil will be the members of the committee. Kishor Patil has replaced Madhu Dandwate from the earlier committee.

Later in the day, while speaking to the press, Joshi said he hoped that his counterpart in Karnataka, J H Patel, would give a positive response to the functioning of the committee. ``The committee will meet Patel first and later, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to solve the prblem as early as possible. I am going to New Delhi on Wednesday and am planning to meet some leaders to sort out the problem. Though several proposals to solve the problem are pending with the committee, it is likely that the committee will consider the resolutionpassed by the State legislature some years back. However, we are open to new proposals also,'' Joshi said.

Meanwhile, Vasant Patil and 11 other members of the Belgaum-based Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti, today assured the Chief Minister that the decision once taken by the committee, will be accepted by their organisation. Patil also awarded all rights to deal with the issue to the committee.