NITI Aayog: Objectives and Functions

NITI Aayog was conceived as a think tank and policy advisory body rather than as a plan-allocating authority -- unlike the Planning Commission, it has no power to allocate plan funds to ministries and state governments; that function now rests with the Ministry of Finance. Its objectives and functions can be grouped as follows.

First, it serves as the premier policy think tank of the Government of India, providing directional and strategic inputs on economic and social policy to the Union and state governments alike, drawing on domain experts, academicians and practitioners.

Second, and most distinctively, it is built to foster cooperative federalism -- involving the states as genuine partners in the national development agenda through institutionalised, structured support in the form of the Governing Council and Regional Councils, replacing the earlier top-down, centrally dictated model with continuous dialogue between the Centre and the states.

Third, it promotes competitive federalism, encouraging healthy competition among states and Union Territories in implementing programmes and reforms -- for example through the publication of comparative indices ranking states on health outcomes, education, water management, ease of doing business and similar parameters -- so that good practice in one state can spread to others through emulation rather than compulsion.

Fourth, it champions a bottom-up approach to planning, in place of the earlier top-down approach, by encouraging plans and priorities to be built up from the village and district level upward, so that local needs genuinely shape state and national priorities.

Fifth, it designs long-term strategic frameworks, replacing the fixed Five Year Plan with a three-tier structure: a fifteen-year long-term Vision, a seven-year medium-term Strategy, and a three-year Action Agenda -- a design meant to be more responsive to changing circumstances than a rigid five-year cycle. …