PM Modi Reconstitutes NITI Aayog, Economist Rajiv Kumar to Continue as Vice Chairman

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday approved the reconstitution of NITI Aayog, the policy think tank of the government of India.

The reconstituted body will continue to see Indian economist Rajiv Kumar as its vice chairman, and VK Saraswat, Ramesh Chand and VK Paul as its members.

Modi has also appointed Home Minister Amit Shah as an ex-officio member.

According to official sources, besides Shah, Defence Minister Rajanth Singh, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar will also be ex-officio members.

Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, Commerce and Industry and Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, Social Justice Minister Thawar Chand Gehlot and Statistics Minister Rao Inderjit Singh will be special invitees to the panel.

Economist Bibek Debroy has been dropped from the panel.

Modi will chair the fifth meeting of NITI Aayog's Governing Council on June 15 to discuss various issues concerning water management, agriculture and security.

The council, the apex body of Niti Aayog, includes all chief ministers, lieutenant governors of union territories, several union ministers and senior government officials.

This will be the first governing council meeting under the new Modi government.

Headed by the Prime Minister, the governing council meets regularly, and its first meeting took place on February 8, 2015.

The second meeting of council on July 15, 2015, reviewed the progress made by the three sub-groups of chief ministers and the two task forces.

In the third meeting of the council on April 23, 2017, Modi had pitched for conducting simultaneous elections of the Lok Sabha and the state assemblies and shifting to a January-December fiscal year.

The fourth meeting of the council on June 17, 2018, deliberated upon measures taken to double farmers' income and the progress of government's flagship schemes.

(With Inputs from PTI)