New Delhi :- PM Narendra Modi today chaired the first meeting of the Governing Council of the newly constituted NITI Aayog.
NITI Aayog has been set up on 01st January, 2015 replacing Planning Commission. The resolution constituting NITI which lays down inter-alia its objectives and structure, stands notified by the Government. As per this notification NITI Aayog comprises the Prime Minister as the Chairperson, its Governing Council comprising the Chief Ministers of all the States and the Lt. Governors of the Union Territories, experts, specialists and practitioners with relevant domain knowledge and a full time organizational frame work. full time organizational frame work comprises in addition of the Prime Minister as the Chairperson, Vice-Chairman, full time Members, part-time Members, ex-officio Members, a Chief- Executive Officer and a Secretariat.
Rajnath Singh-Home Minister, Shri Arun Jaitley-Finance Minister, Shri Suresh Prabhu- Railway Minister, Shri Radha Mohan Singh- Agriculture Minister have been appointed as ex-officio Members. In addition, Shri Nitin Jairam Gadkari- Road Transport and Highways Minister, Shri Thaawar Chand Gehlot-Social Justice and Empowerment Minister and Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani- Human Resource Development Minister have been nominated as special invitees.Government has appointed Dr. Arvind Panagariya as Vice-Chairman and Shri Bibek Debroy and Dr. V.K. Saraswat as full time Members. Smt. Sindhushree Khullar has been appointed as the Chief Executive Officer of NITI.
It may be recalled that on 07th December, 2014, in his consultation, meeting of Chief Ministers of all the States and Lt. Governors of Union Territories, the Prime Minister had outlined the vision of forming Team India for working synergistically towards National Development Agenda.In the meeting of the first Governing Council, the Prime Minister further elaborated on this vision which is an embodiment of the concept of cooperative federalism. On this theme, the Prime Minister further added that he favored healthy competition for development among States. It was pointed out the most important responsibility of NITI Aayog relates to promoting cooperative federalism through structured support initiatives and mechanisms with the States on a continuous basis. The Centre, through this framework will be an enabler in the rapid progress of States through Cooperative Federalism. Various suggestions regarding structured mechanism for interaction based on specific focus issues and relative strengths of States were sought. Further, the views of the States on forming of Regional Council to address the specific issues and contingencies impacting more than one state or a region were also sought.
