Sources said the Prime Minister's Office has finalised 11 names and a few more were being considered to make it a compact group to advise the government on key issues.

Besides Agha and Swaminathan, the new entrants to the NAC are women's rights activist Farah Naqvi, Planning Commission member Narendra Jadhav, social worker Deep Joshi, ecologist Madhav Gadgil and former bureaucrat-turned-rights activist Harsh Mander.

Economist-activist Jean Dreze, Right to Information campaigner Aruna Roy, retired bureaucrat N C Saxena and economist A K Shiva Kumar, who were members of the NAC during UPA-I, have been renominated into the body.

The term of NAC members will be for one year but this could be extended. The first meeting of the Council is likely to take place in the third week of June.

Rita Sharma, an IAS officer who retired as rural development secretary earlier this year, has been appointed as member-secretary.

Gandhi was again named chairperson of the NAC on March 29, four years after she quit on being accused of holding an office of profit.

She had resigned from the NAC in March 2006 after the opposition alleged that she had violated the office of profit principle requiring MPs not to hold offices that carry wages, salaries or allowances during their tenures. She had also resigned her Lok Sabha seat of Rae Bareli but won it back in a re-election.

The NAC was first formed during the earlier tenure of UPA government and had played a role in the enactment of Right to Information Act, Forest Rights Act and National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.

Earlier this month, the Union Cabinet had granted creation of 35 posts for officials and other staff for the consultative body.

The NAC is expected to function from an official bunglow on 2, Motilal Road, which is adjacent to Gandhi's 10, Janpath residence.