ABOUT NITI
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has started the New Year by replacing the 65-year-old Planning Commission, which he had accused of stifling growth with Soviet-style bureaucracy, with a body that he says will give state governments a much larger say in crucial decisions.
1. The new National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) will act more like a think tank or forum, say its supporters, in contrast with the Commission which imposed five-year-plans and allocated resources to hit set economic targets.
2.NITI will include leaders of India's 29 states and seven union territories. But its full-time staff - a deputy chairman, Chief Executive Officer and experts - will answer directly to the 64-year-old Prime Minister, who will be chairman.
3. Mr Modi, elected by a landslide last year on a promise to revive flagging growth and create jobs, had vowed to do away with the Planning Commission that was set up in 1950 by Congressman and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
4.But his plans have been derided by the Congress party, which wants to defend the Nehru legacy and describes Mr Modi's vision of "cooperative federalism" as cover for a veiled power grab.
5.India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, a socialist who admired Joseph Stalin's drive to industrialize the Soviet Union, set up and chaired the Commission to map out a development path for India's agrarian economy.
6.In 2012, the Planning Commission was pilloried for spending some Rs. 35 lakh to renovate two office toilets, and then it was lampooned for suggesting that citizens who spent Rs. 27 or more a day were not poor.
7.The commission had remained powerful over the decades because it had emerged as a sort of parallel cabinet with the Prime Minister as its head
Chairperson
Shri Narendra Modi, Hon'ble Prime Minister
Vice Chairperson
Shri Arvind Panagariya
Full-Time Members
Shri Bibek Debroy
Shri V.K. Saraswat
Ex-officio Members
Shri Rajnath Singh, Minister of Home Affairs
Shri Arun Jaitley, Minister of Finance; Minister of Corporate Affairs; and Minister of Information and Broadcasting
Shri Suresh Prabhu, Minister of Railways
Shri Radha Mohan Singh, Minister of Agriculture
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