(CU)_ The Government of India replaced the Planning Commission with NITI Aayog (National Institution for Transforming India) in January 2015. This was done in order to better serve the needs and aspirations of the people of India. NITI Aayog released its comprehensive national ‘Strategy for New India @75’, which describes clear goals for 2022-23.
As India completes 75 years of Independence in 2022, the government’s premier policy think-tank NITI Aayog has set major plans across 41 crucial areas. NITI Aayog disclosed a detailed description across the 41 major areas that recognizes the progress already made, identifies binding constraints, and suggests the way forward for achieving the government’s objectives.
NITI Aayog in its report ‘Strategy for New India @ 75’ stated that the Indian economy would grow at 9-10% by 2022-23. India is now in the phase of a major transformation and that only a unified effort will ensure that we achieve a New India by 2022 similar to Mahatma Gandhi’s policies towards independence, where he gave call of Quit India in 1942 and achieved independence within five years in 1947.
The goal of the New India @ 75 mission was to achieve Sustainable Development Goals and to enhance cooperative federalism by fostering the involvement of State Governments of India in the economic policy-making process using a bottom-up approach.
The role of NITI Aayog is to provide the central and state governments with suitable strategic and technical advice across the spectrum of prime elements of policy. This incorporates affairs of national and international imports on the economic front, dissemination of best practices from within the country as well as from other nations, the infusion of new policy ideas and specific issue-based support.
NITI Aayog is the premier policy ‘Think Tank’ of the Government of India, providing both directional and policy inputs. It not only designs the strategic and long-term policies and programs for the Government of India, but also provides relevant technical advice to the Centre and States.
The governing council of NITI Aayog includes the Prime Minister as its Chairman, as well as Chief Ministers of all States and Lt. Governors of Union Territories (UTs).
Here are the three key messages from the Prime Minister regarding the ‘Strategy for New India @ 75’:
The first message states that development should become a mass movement, in which each Indian acknowledges her role and additionally experiences the tangible benefits accruing to her in the form of better ease of living.
The second message states that the development strategy should help achieve broad-based economic progress to confirm balanced growth across all regions and states and across sectors. This suggests embracing new technologies, fostering innovation, upskilling, modernization of agriculture and mainstreaming of regions such as the North East, hilly states and the 115 Aspirational Districts.
The third message states that there is a requirement to bridge the gap between public and private sector performance. In order to replace a ‘development state’ in place of the ‘soft state’, there is a requirement of guaranteeing efficient delivery of public services, rooting out corruption and black economy, formalizing the economy, widening the tax base, enhancing the ease of doing business, resuming the stressed commercial banking sector back to a healthy state, and stopping leakages through direct benefit transfers and widespread use of the JAM trinity.
NITI Aayog New India @ 75 document was prepared after extensive consultation at central, state and district levels stakeholders. The document has been classified under four major sections of Drivers, Infrastructure, Inclusion and Governance. Over 800 stakeholders from the Central, State and District level governments and about 550 external experts were consulted during the preparation of the document. The overall focus of the Strategy document is to further enhance the policy environment in which private investors and other stakeholders can contribute their full support towards achieving the goals set out for New India 2022.
