NITI Aayog

NITI Aayog

• National Institution for Transforming India.
• Set up in 1st Jan 2015 by a Cabinet Resolution.
• Its target to empowered states as equal partners in national development -principle of Cooperative Federalism.
• It’s a Think Tank offering domain knowledge as well as strategic expertise to all levels of the government.
• Achieve proper Implementation by monitoring progress
• It is a bottom to top approach.

Need of it in Changing Situation

• India has changed dramatically over the past 65 years
• Government highlighted some key areas

Demographic shift

• Growing urban population
• Higher demographic dividend and low average Age
• People is moving from scarcity and survival to safety and surplus

Economic shift

• Indian economy has expanded by over a hundred times, going from a GDP of Rs. 10,000 crore to Rs. 100 lakh crore
• India emerge as one of the world’s largest economy
• Agriculture’s share in the GDP has seen a dramatic drop, from more than 50%to less than 15%

Shift in the private sector

• Private sector has matured into a vibrant and dynamic force
• Government need to shift from allocator of resources in a command and control Eco-system, to a directing, calibrating, supporting and regulating a market Eco-system
• Government must, transition from being a ‘major player’ in the economy, to being a ‘catalyst’ nurturing an ‘enabling environment’ for all, from small self-employed entrepreneurs

Forces of globalization

• Policy making and functioning of govt. need to match the realities of our continuing integration with the global economic system

Role of the states

• States must become national goal, for the nation’s progress
• “it is unreasonable to centralize powers where central control and uniformity is not clearly essential or is impracticable” – Dr. B. R. Ambedkar

Technology paradigm

• Technology advancements and information access integrated our varied regions and ecosystems
• National economy and society, opening up newer avenues of coordination and cooperation.
• Technology is playing a role in enhancing transparency, efficiency and holding govt. more accountable

NITI Aayog Members – Structure

• Chairman – Prime Minister of India (de-facto)
• Governing Council – comprise the Chief Ministers of all states and Lt. Governors of union territories
• Regional Councils
• Vice-Chairperson – appointed by the PM
• Ex-Officio Members – maximum of 4 members of the Union Council of Ministers to be nominated by the PM
• Chief Executive Officer – to be appointed by the PM for a fixed tenure, in the rank of Secretary
• Full-time Members
• Part-time Members – maximum of 2, from leading universities, research organizations
• Special Invitees – have experts, specialists from relevant domains

Functions of NITI Aayog

Cooperative & Competitive Federalism

• State governments and the local bodies must be made equal partners in the development process
• Implementing a genuine and continuing Center-State partnership

Shared National Agenda

• A shared vision of national development priorities and strategies

State’s Best Friend at the Centre

• It will support states in addressing their own challenges
• Help to building capacity on strengths and comparative advantages

Decentralized Planning

• Restructure the planning process into a ‘bottom-up model’
• Guiding states to further empower local bodies
• It will provide specialised inputs in strategic, functional and technical to center and states

Vision & Scenario Planning

• It will design medium and long-term strategic frameworks for the big picture vision of India’s future
• Target will be constantly monitored for necessary mid-course re-calibration for evolving trends and addressing emerging challenge

Domain Strategies

• To build a repository of specialized domain expertise, both secretarial and cross-secretarial
• This will enable the imbibing of good governance best practices, both national as well as international, regards to structural reforms in the country

Network of Expertise

• Include external ideas and expertise into government policies and programmes through a collaborative community of national and international experts

Harmonisation

• It will facilitate harmonization across different layers of govt. in overlapping issues

Conflict Resolution

• To provide a ‘platform’ for mutual resolution of inter-sectoral, inter-departmental, inter-state as well as center-state issues

Coordinating interface with the World

• It will be the ‘nodal point’ for strategically harnessing global expertise and resources in India’s developmental process

Capacity Building

• To enable ‘capacity building’ and ‘technology up-gradation’ across governments

Monitoring and Evaluation

• It will ‘monitor’ the implementation of policies and programmes, and ‘evaluate’ their impact

Guiding Principle of NITI Aayog

• Aayog will be guided by an overall vision of development which is inclusive, equitable and sustainable
• It will follow a strategy of empowerment built on human dignity and national self-respect
• It will follow a development model which is all round, all pervasive, all inclusive and holistic

Antyodaya

• To priorities service and upliftment of the poor, marginalized and downtrodden

Inclusion

• To empower vulnerable and marginalized sections, redressing identity-based inequalities of all kinds—gender, region, religion, caste or class

Village

• To integrate our villages into the development process

Demographic Dividend

• To harness our greatest asset, the people of India, by focusing on their development
• It can be possible through education and skilling, and their empowerment

People’s Participation

• To transform the developmental process into a people-driven one, making an awakened and participative citizenry – the driver of good governance

Governance

• To nurture an open, transparent, accountable, pro-active and purposeful style

Sustainability

• Maintain sustainability at the core of our planning and developmental process

Specialized Wings in the NITI Aayog

1. Research Wing – It will develop in-house sectoral expertise as a dedicated think tank of top notch domain experts, specialists and scholars
2. Consultancy Wing – It will provide panels of expertise and funding, for Central and state govt. to match their requirements with solution providers, public and private, national and international
3. Team India Wing -It will comprise of representatives from every state and ministry and will serve as a permanent platform for national collaboration.

Niyatam

• By late 2015-16, Niti initiated the Niyatam under which it plans to engage with the states on 6 issues:

Size of the government

• Number of the government departments is to be cut down to maximum 20 to enhance administrative efficiency and effectiveness

Rationalizing schemes

• Number of states’ schemes and centrally funded are to be rationalized
• It aimed at giving states more revenues (14th Finance Commission) to formulate their Budgets in a better way

Monitoring development

• States’ development is to be monitored by collecting data on a set of indicators such as education, health, roads, water, electricity, mobile penetration etc.

District planning

• The Aayog also proposes to work on district planning by examining the baseline indicators, strengths and weaknesses of each district

Result Framework Document

• Establishing a result framework document at block level

Legal reforms

• Aimed at improving efficiency in government functioning
• Laws are to be revamped by repealing old laws
• Rationalising and consolidating the rest of the laws and introducing new laws

Action Agenda of NITI Aayog

• The work on the three documents has progressed in parallel
  1. Fifteen Year Vision
  2. Seven Year Strategy
  3. Three Year Action Agenda

Three Year Revenue and Expenditure Framework

• Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) for the Centre is proposed. based on forecasts of revenue
• It proposes sector-wise expenditure allocation for three years
• Roadmap consisting of sifting additional revenues towards high priority sectors – health, education, agriculture, rural development, defence, railways, roads

Agriculture

• Doubling Farmers’ Income by 2022
• Reform the agriculture product marketing to ensure farmers’ income
• Raise productivity by irrigation, faster seed replacement and precision agriculture (site specific crop management )

Industry and Services – Job Creation

• Create Coastal Employment Zones (CEZs) to boost exports and generate high-productivity jobs
• Labour-market flexibility through reforming key laws
• Action points for specific sectors – Apparel, Leather and Footwear, Electronics, Food processing., Gems and Jewellery, Tourism, Fïnancc and Real Estate

Urban Development

• Bring down land prices for affordable housing through increased supply of urban land
• Reform the Rent Control Act along the lines of Model Tenancy Act.
• Promote dormitory housing
• Address issues related to city transportation infrastructure and waste management

Regional strategies

• Actions targeted aimed at improving development outcomes in the
  1. North Eastern Region
  2. Coastal Areas and Islands.
  3. North Himalayan states
  4. Desert and Drought prone states

Transport and Digital Connectivity

• Strengthen infrastructure in roadways, railways, shipping and ports, inland waterways and civil aviation
• Ensure last-mile digital connectivity, particularly for e-governance and financial inclusion, through developing infrastructure, simplifying the payments structure and improving literacy.
• Introducing low cost debt instruments and operationalizing the National Investment Infrastructure Fund (NIIF)

Energy

• Providing electricity to all households by 2022
• LPG connection to all BPL households, elimination of black carbon by 2022
• Extension of the city gas distribution programme to 100 smart cities
• Coal sector reform by regulator and encouraging commercial mining

Science and Technology

• Create comprehensive database of all government schemes and evaluate them
• Develop guidelines for PPPs in science and technology to improve education and demand-driven research
• Channel science and technology to address development challenges such as access to education, improving agricultural productivity and waste water management
• Create a National Science, Technology and Innovation Foundation (NSTIF) to identify and deliberate national issues
• Streamline the administration of the patent regime.

Governance

• Re-calibrate the role of the govt. by shrinking its involvement in non-public purpose activities and expanding its role in areas that necessarily require public provision
• Implement the roadmap on closing loss-making PSEs and strategic disinvestment of 20 identified CPSEs.
• Expand the government’s role in public health and quality education
• Strengthen the civil services through better human resource management, e-governance, tenures of secretaries and increasing specialization and lateral entry.

Taxation and Regulation

• Tackle tax evasion, expand the tax base through reforms
• Strengthen public procurement

The Rule of Law

• Undertake significant judicial system reforms through use of ICT
• Reduced judicial workload
• Legislative administrative and operational reforms of police are suggested to the states.

Education and Skill Development

• Shift the emphasis on the quality of school education by focusing on foundational learning
• Move away from input-based to outcome based assessments.
• Revisit the policy of automatic promotion up to eighth grade.
• Create a tiered regulation of universities and colleges to provide greater autonomy to top universities under the current system.
• Focus on creating and funding public universities under the World Class Universities program.

Health

• Focus on public health through more government expenditure on it
• Formulate a model policy on human resources for health
• Implement a bridge course for nurses AYUSH practitioners in primary care.
• Reform Indian Medical Council Act and the acts governing homeopathy and Indian systems of medicine
• Launch the National Nutrition Mission; develop a comprehensive Nutrition Information System.