Abstract
On 1 January 2015, the Cabinet passed a resolution to set up the National Institution for Transformation of India (NITI) Aayog. This brought to the end of the erstwhile Planning Commission, which had played an important role in the country’s economy for over six and a half decades from very low initial conditions to a high growth trajectory. This paper addresses the following issues relating to the NITI Aayog: What has motivated the new government to replace the Planning Commission with the NITI Aayog? What are the roles and functions assigned? What is its organizational design? How does its functional architecture look like? What are some of its major initiatives in the last four years? Was it inevitable to dissolve the Planning Commission and create a new institution to do what the NITI Aayog is doing? While concluding, it argues that a restructured and reoriented Planning Commission dispensing with its negatives features such as micro-management and excessive bureaucratization but retaining the positive ones in sync with the changed contexts could have done better than what NITI Aayog has been doing.
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Notes
- 1.
GoI (2016), NITI Aayog, Transforming India, p. 5.
- 2.
Ibid. P. 6.,
- 3.
Quoted from Vithal and Sastry (2002).
- 4.
Cabinet Resolution: New Delhi, 1 January 2015. P. 9.
- 5.
GoI (2016), NITI Aayog, Annual Report 2015–16:4.
- 6.
NITI Aayog, Annual Report 17–18, p. 4.
- 7.
Discussion in this section is based on the NITI Aayog’s Annual reports.
- 8.
NITI Aayog, 2015–16 p. 10.
- 9.
NITI Aayog, 2015–16. P.12.
- 10.
- 11.
Business Standard (20 December 2019), Volume XXV Number 176 (Editorial).
- 12.
For comprehensive discussion on plan formulation and the planning process in India, see, Sarma, Atul (2014) ‘Redefining the Role of Planning Commission in Post-reform Context: An Appraisal’ (Unpublished), presented at the International Symposium on Towards a Desirable Future for India in an Increasingly Globalised Society, organized by Institute for Human Development, New Delhi, in honour of Professor Yoginder K. Alagh, 9–11 March 2014.
- 13.
Parikh (1996).
- 14.
See, ‘A Note on Economy Wide Modelling and Sectoral Outlays’ by Adviser, PPD, quoted in Arun Shourie’s Governance and the Sclerosis that has Set In, Rupa & Company, New Delhi, pp. 103–105, 2004.
- 15.
Bagchi (2007), 3 November.
- 16.
Loan component was discontinued following the recommendation of the Twelfth Finance Commission.
- 17.
Bagchi (2007), op. cit., p. 96.
- 18.
Government of India (2010).
- 19.
These are: Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan, National Rural Drinking Water Programme (50:50), National Health Mission (75:25), Integrated Watershed Management Programme (90:10), Indira Awas Yojana (75:25), MGNREGA (90:10), National Rural Livelihood Mission (75:25), Padhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (100 per cent), Rajiv Gandhi Panchayat Sashaktikaran Yojana (75:25), Mid-Day-Meal Programme (65:35), Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (65:35) and Integrated Child Development Services Scheme (90:10).
- 20.
Bagchi (2007), op cit., p. 98.
- 21.
For the detailed process of plan formulation, see Sarma (2014), op. cit.
- 22.
- 23.
Kelkar (2019), ‘Towards India’s New Fiscal Federalism’, Prof. Sukhamoy Chakravarty Memorial Lecture delivered at the 55th Annual Conference of the Indian Econometric Society, National Institute of Securities Markets (NISM), Mumbai, 8 January, pp. 15–16.
- 24.
Ibid., p. 16.
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Acknowledgements
This is the revised version of the 13th Professor B. S. Minhas Memorial Lecture delivered at A. S. College, Khanna, Punjab, on 15 February 2019. The author gratefully acknowledges the helpful suggestions of Prof. Y. K. Alagh and Dr. Y. V. Reddy on the earlier version.
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Sarma, A. (2022). NITI Aayog—An Alternate Think Tank. In: Hashim, S.R., Mukherji, R., Mishra, B. (eds) Perspectives on Inclusive Policies for Development in India. India Studies in Business and Economics. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0185-0_11
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