Governance
NITI Aayog-like Bodies in States
- 13 Sep 2022
- 5 min read
For Prelims: NITI Aayog, Cooperative Federalism.
For Mains: The Need and the Plan for Setting-Up NITI Aayog-like Bodies in States.
Why in News?
The National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog will assist each state to set up similar bodies, replacing their planning boards for faster and inclusive economic growth along with the vision of becoming a developed nation by 2047.
What is NITI Aayog?
- NITI Aayog is the apex public policy think tank of the Government of India.
- It replaced the Planning Commission on 1st January, 2015 with emphasis on ‘Bottom –Up’ approach to envisage the vision of Maximum Governance, Minimum Government, echoing the spirit of ‘Cooperative Federalism’.
- It has two Hubs.
- Team India Hub acts as interface between States and Centre.
- Knowledge and Innovation Hub builds the think-tank acumen of NITI Aayog.
What is the Need for Setting up NITI Aayog-like Bodies in States?
- States are the Indian economy’s growth drivers. The national gross domestic product (GDP) growth is an aggregation of states’ rates of growth except for sectors like defence, railways and highways.
- Health, education and skilling are primarily with the state government.
- State governments’ role is critical to improving ease of doing business, land reforms, infrastructure development, credit flows and urbanisation, all of which are vital for sustained economic growth.
- Most states so far have done little to rejuvenate their planning departments/boards, which earlier dealt with the Planning Commission and prepared parallel state five year-plans with the Centre.
- Most states’ planning departments, with huge manpower, are almost defunct and have no clarity what work they will do.
What is the Agenda for Implementation?
- Initially, it aims for 8-10 states to set up such bodies, before reaching out to all by March 2023.
- Four states i.e., Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Assam have already begun work in this regard.
- Maharashtra, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat will likely begin work soon.
- A plan has been chalked out by NITI Aayog to:
- Help in the creation of teams that will examine the existing structure of state planning boards.
- Conceptualise the State Institution for Transformation (SIT) in the next 4-6 months.
- Lateral entry of professionals will be encouraged in SITs to undertake high-quality analytical work and policy recommendations.
- Besides reorienting state planning boards as SITs, a blueprint will be made on:
- Guiding states in policy formulation.
- Monitoring and evaluation of government policies and programmes.
- Suggesting better technology or models for delivery of schemes.
UPSC Civil Services Examination, Previous Year Question (PYQ)
Q. Atal Innovation Mission is set up under the (2019)
(a) Department of Science and Technology
(b) Ministry of Labour and Employment
(c) NITI Aayog
(d) Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship
Ans: (c)
Exp:
- The Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) is a flagship initiative set up by the NITI Aayog to promote innovation and entrepreneurship based on a detailed study and deliberations on innovation and entrepreneurial needs of the country.
- AIM is envisaged as an umbrella innovation organization that would play an instrumental role in alignment of innovation policies between Central, State and sectoral innovation schemes incentivizing the establishment and promotion of an ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship at various levels – higher secondary schools; science, engineering and higher academic institutions; SME/MSME industry,corporate and NGO levels.
- Hence, option C is the correct answer.
