Ms. Sindhushree Khullar the Member-Secretary (IAS)
Ms. Sindhushree Khullar A secretary
level bureaucrat with fixed tenure
Ex-officio members
Finance Minister and Planning Minister
Nominated by PM and current
members are:
Home
Finance
Railway
Agriculture
Full time members
4 to 7 members
current members are:
Bibek Debroy the Free
market economist
Dr. V. K. Saraswat the technocrat, missile scientist and Ex-DRDO chief.
Special Invitees
(Recommended by PM) Current
Union ministers
Transport
HRD
Social Justice
Part-time members
Tech exports from research institutes
Governing Council
Chairman Prime minister
Chief ministers of all states
Lieutenant governors of all Union territories.
Ad hoc Regional Councils
CMs of states are fall in the region
with specific issue concerning a group
of states
Seven Pillars of NITI Aayog
Functions of NITI Aayog
Think tank for Government policy formulation.
Find best practices from other countries, partner with other countries so that they accept India.
Cooperative Federalism Involvement of state governments and villages in planning process.
Sustainable development Modi՚s Zero defect-zero effect manufacturing mantra.
Urban Development
Participatory Development with support of private sector and citizens
Inclusive Development or Antyodaya to ensure SC, ST and Women too enjoy the fruits of Development.
Poverty elimination to confirm dignity and self-respect.
To generate more employment for weaker sections Focus on 5 crore Small enterprises.
Monitoring and feedback.
Make policies to reap demographic dividend and social capital.
Regional Councils to address “issues” for a group of states.
Extract maximum benefit from NRI՚s geo-economic and Geo-political strength for India՚s Development.
To ensure transparency, accountability and good governance use Social media and ICT tools.
Help sorting inter-departmental conflicts.
Functional Comparison: NITI Aayog vs. Planning Commission
Functional Comparison: NITI Aayog vs. Planning Commission
Planning Commission
NITI Aayog
It Designs FYP-Five year plans
It Designs national agenda and cooperative federalism
Select two “money” matters:
For centrally sponsored schemes (CSS) how much money to be provided to each state
How much money to provide to each state՚s own state-five-year-plans.
It work as a “policy-formulation-hub” .
The Press release is Silent on money⟋funding that՚s way it will be left to finance ministry most probably.
Some specialists have faith in Inter-state council which decide money allocation to states, then finance ministry will release the fund.
States⟋UT were represented in National Development Council.
States⟋UT represented in Governing council. But it was not specified that whether they can approve⟋reject⟋amend NITI Aayog՚s proposals?
One size fits all, top-down socialist planning by Armchair Nehruvian economists and IES cadre officers (Indian Economic Service) .
Press release talks about participatory planning but not specified details how they do so.
IES officers are hardly invited in Modi՚s meetings.
But Free market economists and Technocrats, are invited
Niti Aayog: Criticism⟋Anti-Arguments
Like planning commission, it՚s also a non-constitutional body which is not responsible to parliament.
Major critic is dismantled planning commission without consulting the states.
Fund allocation to welfare schemes may get affected. For example, there is a 20% reduction in gender budgeting.
At present, India had more than 60 sponsored schemes. PM Modi wants to combine them into just 10 schemes so that poor and marginalized communities will suffer.
Planning commission monitor human development in the States, Sub-plans for women, SC and ST where as in Niti Aayog this is not mentioned at all
Niti Aayog mainly focused on manufacturing sector.
Nehruvian Economists of Planning Commission advocated decentralized planning where as free market economists and technocrats of NITI Aayog will focus on centralized planning and e-monitoring.