Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre has reconstituted the NITI Aayog, the apex public policy think tank of Union government. The government has included four full-time members and 15 Union Ministers, including those from BJP allies, as either ex-officio members or special invitees in the think tank.
PM Modi remains the chairperson and economist Suman K Bery will continue to be the vice-chairperson of NITI Aayog, said the official notification. The government has reconstituted the NITI Aayog following changes in the council of ministers.
Former ISRO DG and Scientist VK Saraswat, agricultural economist Ramesh Chand, paediatrician Dr VK Paul and noted economist Arvind Virmani continue to be full-time members of NITI Aayog.
The four ex-officio members from the PM Modi’s cabinet include Union Ministers Rajnath Singh (Defence), Amit Shah (Home), Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Agriculture) and Nirmala Sitharaman (Finance). The special invitees in the reconstituted NITI Aayog will be Union ministers Nitin Gadkari (Road Transport and Highways) and JP Nadda (Health).
HD Kumaraswamy (Heavy Industries and Steel), Jitan Ram Manjhi (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises) and Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh (Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying) are the ministers representing ally parties of the BJP.
Other special invitees are Union Ministers Virendra Kumar (Social Justice and Empowerment), Rammohan Naidu (Civil Aviation), Jual Oram (Tribal Affairs), Annpurna Devi (Women and Child Development), Chirag Paswan (Food Processing Industries) and Rao Inderjit Singh (Statistics and Programme Implementation). Naidu and Paswan are also from ally parties.
The National Institution for Transforming India, better known as NITI Aayog, was constituted in 2015 when the PM Modi-led Union government chose to scrap the 65-year-old Planning Commission.