Niti Aayog's decade as an ideas platform

New challenges await the country's premier policy think tank

- Suman Bery

We will replace the Planning Commission with a new institution having a new design and structure, a new body, a new soul, a new thinking, a new direction.

These were the words of Narendra Modi on August 15, 2014, in his first Independence Day speech as Prime Minister (PM). While radical, the step was not unexpected; much commentary within and outside the government had concluded that the existing institution no longer reflected the needs and structure of an increasingly market-driven Indian economy.

Niti Aayog came into legal existence on January 1, 2015. Its first decade has been shaped by the steady and wise leadership of its chairman, PM Modi, and by India's rising profile in the global economy. It is my honour and privilege to hold the position of vice chairman at this auspicious moment, the third successive policy economist to be selected for this role.

Under our chairman's guidance, certain principles have been established which have served the institution well over the last decade.

The first has been to extract Niti Aayog from a direct financial allocation role. This is of particular relevance to India's states, which earlier had to seek the Planning Commission's funding for part of their development expenditures.

As such, the creation of Niti Aayog has marked a major move toward decentralisation. It has also prompted Niti Aayog to invent new tools to support the doctrine of "competitive and cooperative federalism". These started with data-driven comparative indicators noted later in this article and have evolved to support states (at their request) to set up state-level 'institutions of transformation' (SITs).