What is NITI Aayog? Explained in brief

Background

• As our lead­ers were influ­enced by the com­mu­nist clime of the erst­while USSR, plan­ning became ingrained in the Indi­an mind. For near­ly six decades, the Plan­ning Com­mis­sion oper­at­ed as the plan­ning vehi­cle, focus­ing on a con­trol and com­mand strategy.
• On Jan­u­ary 1, 2015, the Plan­ning Com­mis­sion was replaced by a new enti­ty, NITI AAYYOG, with a focus on a ‘Bot­tom-Up’ approach to envi­sion the vision of Max­i­mum Gov­er­nance, Min­i­mal Gov­ern­ment, mir­ror­ing the spir­it of ‘Coop­er­a­tive Federalism.’

Administrative Skeltal

• Chair­per­son: Prime Minister
• Vice-Chair­per­son: To be appoint­ed by Prime-Minister
• Gov­ern­ing Coun­cil: Chief Min­is­ters of all states and Lt. Gov­er­nors of Union Territories.
• Region­al Coun­cil: To address spe­cif­ic region­al issues, Com­pris­ing Chief Min­is­ters and Lt. Gov­er­nors Chaired by Prime Min­is­ter or his nominee.
• Adhoc Mem­ber­ship: 2 mem­ber in ex-offi­cio capac­i­ty from lead­ing Research insti­tu­tions on rota­tion­al basis.
• Ex-Offi­cio mem­ber­ship: Max­i­mum four from Union coun­cil of min­is­ters to be nom­i­nat­ed by Prime minister.
• Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer: Appoint­ed by Prime-min­is­ter for a fixed tenure, in rank of Sec­re­tary to Gov­ern­ment of India.
• Spe­cial Invi­tees: Experts, Spe­cial­ists with domain knowl­edge nom­i­nat­ed by Prime-minister.

NITI Aayog Hubs

• Team India Hub acts as inter­face between States and Centre.
• Knowl­edge and Inno­va­tion Hub builds the think-tank acu­men of NITI Aayog.

The Aayog planned to come out with three doc­u­ments — 3‑year action agen­da, 7‑year medi­um-term strat­e­gy paper and 15-year vision document.

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Importance

• The 65 year-old Plan­ning Com­mis­sion had become a redun­dant orga­ni­za­tion. It was rel­e­vant in a com­mand econ­o­my struc­ture, but not any longer.
• India is a diver­si­fied coun­try and its states are in var­i­ous phas­es of eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment along with their own strengths and weaknesses.
• In this con­text, a ‘one size fits all’ approach to eco­nom­ic plan­ning is obso­lete. It can­not make India com­pet­i­tive in today’s glob­al economy.

Objectives

• To fos­ter coop­er­a­tive fed­er­al­ism through struc­tured sup­port ini­tia­tives and mech­a­nisms with the States on a con­tin­u­ous basis, rec­og­niz­ing that strong States make a strong nation.
• To devel­op mech­a­nisms to for­mu­late cred­i­ble plans at the vil­lage lev­el and aggre­gate these pro­gres­sive­ly at high­er lev­els of government.
• To ensure, on areas that are specif­i­cal­ly referred to it, that the inter­ests of nation­al secu­ri­ty are incor­po­rat­ed in eco­nom­ic strat­e­gy and policy.
• To pay spe­cial atten­tion to the sec­tions of our soci­ety that may be at risk of not ben­e­fit­ting ade­quate­ly from eco­nom­ic progress.
• To pro­vide advice and encour­age part­ner­ships between key stake­hold­ers and nation­al and inter­na­tion­al like-mind­ed Think Tanks, as well as edu­ca­tion­al and pol­i­cy research institutions.
• To cre­ate a knowl­edge, inno­va­tion and entre­pre­neur­ial sup­port sys­tem through a col­lab­o­ra­tive com­mu­ni­ty of nation­al and inter­na­tion­al experts, prac­ti­tion­ers and oth­er partners.
• To offer a plat­form for res­o­lu­tion of inter-sec­toral and inter-depart­men­tal issues in order to accel­er­ate the imple­men­ta­tion of the devel­op­ment agenda.
• To main­tain a state-of-the-art Resource Cen­tre, be a repos­i­to­ry of research on good gov­er­nance and best prac­tices in sus­tain­able and equi­table devel­op­ment as well as help their dis­sem­i­na­tion to stake-holders

Challenges

• To demon­strate its pol­i­cy­mak­ing prowess, the NITI Aayog must pri­ori­tise 13 objec­tives with a clear under­stand­ing of the dif­fer­ences between pol­i­cy, plan­ning, and strategy.
• NITI Aayog, more than the plan­ning com­mis­sion, requires free­dom of var­i­ous kinds with bud­getary pro­vi­sions not in terms of plan and non-plan expen­di­tures, but in terms of rev­enue and cap­i­tal expen­di­ture, because a high­er rate of increase in cap­i­tal expen­di­ture can elim­i­nate infra­struc­tur­al deficits at all lev­els of oper­a­tion in the economy.

Way Forward

Plan­ning decen­tral­i­sa­tion, but with­in a five-year plan frame­work. The bureau­crat­ic iner­tia must be bro­ken by spe­cial­is­ing it and estab­lish­ing per­for­mance-based account­abil­i­ty. Over time, NITI Aayog could emerge as a change agent, con­tribut­ing to the gov­ern­men­t’s aim of improv­ing gov­er­nance and intro­duc­ing inno­v­a­tive meth­ods to improve pub­lic ser­vice deliv­ery. NITI Aayog con­tin­ues to be a shin­ing exam­ple of a coun­try’s effi­cient, trans­par­ent, inno­v­a­tive, and respon­si­ble gov­ern­ment struc­ture, with exem­plary work ethics.