NITI Ayog- (Dissecting the Change and its Impact)

Source: Business Standard

White Hat- Facts and Figures
By- Vibha Maru

With the beginning of New Year, Yojana Bhawan witnessed a new look as the current government introduced the NITI Aayog (national institute for transforming India) replacing the 65 years old Planning Commission. The Prime Minister will head the Aayog and has appointed Arvind Panagariya, Asian Development Bank’s former chief economist to be the first Vice chairperson. Former Planning Commission Secretary Sindhushree Khullar has been appointed as chief executive 

of the newly formed Aayog.

The basic difference between planning commission and its restructured version is that it is just an authorized body to recommend suggestion to state and central governments but has no power to allocate funds, apparently that lies under financial ministry now. Role of state government is more relevant in NITI Aayog as earlier it was limited to National Development Council and annual interaction during plan meetings. There are only two full time members, Shri Bibek Debroy, Economist and Dr. V.K. Saraswat, Former Secretary Defence R&D, whereas the last commission had eight full time members.

Planning Commission had no provision for part time members but Aayog has a number of part-time members, depending on the need from time to time. It comprises of two council, governing council which includes Chief Ministers of all the States and Lieutenant Governors of Union Territories and regional council which will be formed for a specific time period to address specific issues affecting more than one state; it will be headed by the chairperson of NITI Aayog. Ex-official and special invites team includes members from the union ministry like Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley, Nitin Gadkari and Smriti Zubin Irani.

The basic aim of the NITI Aayog is to empower rather than arrange all sorts of resorts. It is structured focusing on future Indian policies which should provide participation of people rather than providing them with just financial support. To promote that government has reduced its role in industrial and service sector it will rather focus on enabling legislation, policy making and regulation

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Black hat- Criticism

By- Prateek Kumar

National Institution for transforming India (NITI) Aayog or we may call it as a cosmetic relabeling exercise of the Planning Commission. Contribution of state governments is much more in NITI Aayog than in Planning Commission. Planning Commission was criticized for its ineffective policies that reflected a clear policy paralysis. But does it mean that NITI Aayog will not face the same problems.

The role of Planning Commission was not restricted in “planning” exercise, which could be seen as defective in present day.  Actually, Plan and capital expenditure are required. Every Finance Department is looking out for a reason to cut the Plan and capital expenditure in an effort to reduce deficits. Before every Union budget, planning commission was the only body that was lobbied along with Finance Department to safeguard the plans expenditure.  As Niti Aayog does not have that Part to play, the function of lobbying will be absent. By that vary fact; Finance Departments will now be free to rip off the Plans expenditure and annual financial support to the Plan.

Planning commission, down the ages have followed the formula based on Gadgill Mukherjee transfer methods such as Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS), but who decide that Special category role, as NITI Aayog doesn’t have any part to play. With an aid of CSS, the money allocated to different states could be questioned on its rigidity and multiplicity as citizen knew where the whole amount was being spent on. But the new government has not only abandoned the existing Planning Commission but has also put an end to CSS. CSS now has been replaced with direct allocations to Central Ministries.

Earlier in Planning Commission developing bodies such as NDC for Secretariat function, Inter State Council and National Advisory Council were playing the role of so called think tank. But in NITI Aayog government have bundled all of these together, which have made it unwieldy and complicated.

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Yellow hat- Optimism/Support
By- Ayushman Kumar

The Planning commission has been abolished by the central government and it has been replaced by the NITI Aayog. This came as a surprise to many in the country but the central government has termed it as a move towards ‘effective governance’.

The newly formed NITI Aayog has been in controversy since it has been formed, the opposition has termed it as “old wine in a new bottle”. The planning process in India required greater decentralization of power and the inclusion of state views. These two things have been considered while making the new body.

The Aayog has been based on seven pillars of effective governance that includes being ‘pro people’ to fulfill the aspiration of society as well as individual, ‘pro activity’ to anticipate the needs of common man, ‘participation’ which includes the involvement of citizenry, to ‘empowering’ the women of the nation, ‘participation of all’ taking the minorities and weaker sections of the society that would include gaon, gareeb , kisaan, for providing the ‘equality’ to each citizen of the country, to bring the transparency in the government to make it responsive and transparent.

The Aayog aims at fostering the cooperative federalism which will encourage the state centre partnership. The formulation of plans in this Aayog will take place at village level where as the aggregation will take place at the higher level. The Aayog targets the village’s entrepreneurship by knowledge and innovations.

The Aayog’s innovation centers around bringing inclusive development with cooperation of central leadership and state bureaucracy which will give way to better national economic policies that would incorporate the national security interest.

The gap between the system and people has widened in the recent years due to the policies of central government and to bridge this gap the NITI Aayog will give special attention to those who have been alienated from the path of progress and section at risk of not benefiting from the economic progress.

The Niti Aayog would be using the state-of-the art resource centre for research on ‘good governance’, the agenda that gave the Bhartiya Janta party mandate to govern the nation.

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Green Hat- Creative Solutions
By- Arshad Khan

Scrapping 64 year old Planning Commission raised many eyebrows in nation. Ruling party said its time to move forward while opposition claimed that the present government has only renamed the commission.

One of the major drawbacks of Planning Commission was its opaque nature. It lacked transparency. Free from the clutches of RTI made it difficult for masses to know its efficiency. Making NITI Aayog transparent would not only curb corruption in its body but will increase participants of citizen. At present nothing is described of RTI in the Aayog.

At present the economy is subjected to a lot of fluctuations. Implementing any program for a long duration is nearly impractical. Heavy infrastructure work like construction of railways and roadways could be subjected to 5 year long duration but certainly not every plan. The policies that are formulated should be closely monitored and any time frame that is allotted should be closely scrutinized and a framework should be rolled out so that the implementation is monitored.

Ministries of important sectors should be included in the new body, namely defense, business and commerce, rural development. At present they are not ex-office chairperson of the Aayog. This would not only help to facilitate funds but will also increase valuable suggestions.

Most of the policies formulated in the Planning Commission were formulated by keeping the entire nation in mind. Ground realities of the states were somehow left in the policies. Many allegations are made that the Centre are biased to some states, particularly to same government states. NITI Aayog should be impartial to each state.

Appointment of Arvind Panagariya as the vice-chairman is truly a good step. He is globally known for his economic measures. Like him we need many think tankers, both in Centre and State. Think tankers present the real pictures of society, unlike politicians who only boost themselves. Their analysis is based on facts. At the end of the day the lesser the politics, the lesser will be the delay.

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Blue Hat- Expert Opinion
By- Ankit Chatterjee

Prof. Subir Ghosh, Former Journalist for ABP group and The Statesman, Founder faculty member of Mass Communication course in Jadavpur University, Kolkata

Q. How different is the Niti Aayog from the Planning Commission?
A. Planning Commission had served the country for a long number of years. People are familiar with its functioning, working and to some extent its philosophy.  Niti Aayog has been set up recently by BJP, just like the Congress had originally formed the Planning Commission. So there can be some radical changes of which people are still unaware of. Whenever one plans any planning commission, one reflects the prevailing political policies and philosophies of the party in power. Just like the Planning Commission had performed well and reflected socialistic patterns in its early days, I expect the Niti Aayog to be BJP's think tank for the coming years.

Q. Should the Planning Commission have been abolished?
A. I don't think the Planning Commission is abolished. What we have here is similar to old wine in a new bottle. The newly formed Niti Aayog is very much similar to the former Planning Commission. The basic functions still remain the same, the name has been changed.

Q. How has the media given coverage to this issue?
A. Media thrives on controversies and is expert in creating hype. Since, the Planning Commission was set up by the Congress and now it is replaced by BJP's Niti Aayog, there is a controversial angle. Nothing is more welcome to media than conflict, clash and issues.

Q. What can be the repercussions or advantages of the newly formed Niti Aayog?
A. It is too early to say so, as they have not yet started functioning. But one thing I am very sure of that is just like the Planning Commission had reflected the early idealism of Jawaharlal Nehru; similarly the Niti Aayog will also reflect the viewpoint of Narendra Modi's socio-economic philosophies.

Q. Anything else that you would like to add.
A. Yes. Whenever a new government comes to power, it has to deliver and while doing so it has to keep in mind that it has to do something that the former government didn't do. A new chapter needs to be started. Everything that the former government did was wrong and it is the duty of the newly formed government to make it right. This has been the philosophy of all the political parties of the country. It is rightly said that the taste of the pudding is only in eating, so only time will tell whether Niti Aayog will deliver better than the Planning Commission.

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Red Hat- Public Opinion
By- Bhaswar Kumar

Esha Taneja, MA English (Hons) DU, PG Diploma in ADPR from IIMC Delhi

                         
Q. What do you know about the newly instituted Niti Ayog?
A. Not a lot. I do know that it is meant to replace the Planning Commission and that will be used to ensure the creation more effective policies.

Q. In your opinion how is the Niti Ayog different from the Planning Commission?
A. So far I honestly cannot tell the concrete difference between the two. But from what I have read and seen through the news the Niti Ayog will have greater involvement from the states.

Q. Should the Planning Commission have been abolished?
A. I cannot answer this question for sure. We will have to wait and see how the new body functions and what it achieves in comparison to the Planning commission to find the answer.

Q. What do you think of the manner in which the media has covered this issue?
A. From what I have seen and read the media has not covered the issue in a way in which we common people can understand what the Niti Ayog is and does in layman terms. The media needs to explain this change to the people properly.

Asif Qureshi, Proprietor of a general store

Q. What do you know about the newly instituted Niti Ayog?
A. I know that it is meant to take over the functions of the Planning Commission and that our PM had promised a new system in the place of the new commission in his Independence Day speech.

Q. In your opinion how is the Niti Ayog different from the Planning Commission?
A. I cannot say what will be different exactly but I know its work and effect will be different from those of the Planning Commission due to the kind of people who will run it.

Q. Should the Planning Commission have been abolished?
A. I think it was time for it to be abolished, it had been there for many years but we didn’t see it achieve much really.

Q. What do you think of the manner in which the media has covered this issue?
A. The media did cover the issue but I don’t know whether it provided all the details that the people would have wanted to know or not. It seems like the media itself may not know a lot about the changes.

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Introduction:

Vibha Maru, 21, Graduate in B.Com (Hons.) from Rajasthan university, Pursuing Diploma in English Journalism from Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal

Prateek Kumar, 23, Graduate in English Literature from Delhi University, Pursuing Diploma in English Journalism from Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal

Ayushman Arun Kumar, 21, Graduate in Zoology from Odisha University for Agriculture and Technology Bhubaneswar, Pursuing Diploma in English Journalism from Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal

Arshad Khan, 22, Graduate in Financial Accountancy from Calcutta University, Former intern in a brokerage firm, Pursuing Diploma in English Journalism from Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal

Ankit Chatterjee, 22, Graduate in Journalism and Mass Communication from Amity University, Former Journalist at tadpoles.in, Pursuing Diploma in English Journalism from Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal

Bhaswar Kumar, 23, Graduate in English literature from Delhi University, Pursuing Diploma in English Journalism from Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal

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