Ø On New Year’s Day, the Modi government set up NITI Aayog (National
Institution for Transforming India)
in place of the Planning Commission. The Prime Minister will head the new
institution tasked with the role of formulating policies and direction for the
government. Its governing council will comprise the Chief Ministers and
the Lieutenant Governors of Union Territories. The Prime Minister will
appoint the Aayog’s Vice-Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer. Asian
Development Bank’s former Chief Economist Arvind Panagariya is tipped to be the
first Vice-Chairperson. The government plans to adopt a “Bharatiya”
approach to development, says the resolution of the Union Cabinet for
setting up the Aayog. India needs an administration paradigm in which the
government is an enabler rather than a provider of first and last resort. The
Aayog will recommend a national agenda, including strategic and technical
advice on elements of policy and economic matters. It will also develop
mechanisms for village-level plans and aggregate these progressively at higher
levels of government. The institutions of governance and policy have to adapt
to new challenges and must be built on the founding principles of the
Constitution, the resolution says. On the planning process, it says that there
is a need to separate the process from the strategy of governance. Transforming
India, it further says, will involve changes of two types — consequences of
market forces and those that would be planned. “The maturing of our
institutions and polity also entails a diminished role for centralised
planning, which itself needs to be redefined.” A state-of-the-art resource
centre for good governance practices is also proposed. The Planning Commission
was set up in March 1950 through a Cabinet Resolution, which the Modi
government scrapped in August 2014.
Ø Krishan
Kant Paul will be sworn in
as the sixth Governor of Uttarakhand.
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