Q.When and why was NITI Aayog established?

NITI Aayog was established on 1 January 2015, replacing the Planning Commission.

It was created to move away from the Planning Commission's rigid, top-down, fund-allocating model toward an institution that treats states as equal partners, fosters cooperative and competitive federalism, and gives strategic policy advice without directly controlling plan funds. …

NITI Aayog, whose full form is the National Institution for Transforming India, was established on 1 January 2015 by a resolution of the Union Cabinet, taking over from the Planning Commission as the country's premier public policy think tank.

The reasons behind its creation were closely tied to the perceived shortcomings of the Planning Commission model discussed earlier: the rigid, five-year, top-down planning framework was seen as poorly suited to a liberalised, rapidly growing and increasingly federal economy; states wanted a stronger, more institutionalised voice in shaping national development priorities rather than being largely on the receiving end of centrally determined plan allocations; and there was a broader recognition that India's development challenges -- regional diversity, differing states of development across states, and the need for faster policy responsiveness -- called for a more flexible, consultative and knowledge-driven institution rather than a rigid, target-fixing bureaucracy. …

Students sometimes misdate NITI Aayog's establishment or confuse it with the end of the Twelfth Plan in 2017; the corre …