The central government on Tuesday reconstituted the Niti Aayog on Tuesday, appointing four full-time members and 15 union ministers, including BJP allies, as either ex-officio members or special invitees.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi remains the Chairperson and economist Suman K Bery will continue to be the Vice Chairperson of Aayog, according to the notification.
The full-time members include scientist V K Saraswat, agricultural economist Ramesh Chand, paediatrician V K Paul, and macro-economist Arvind Virmani. BVR Subrahmanyam will also remain the CEO, PTI reported.
Union Ministers Rajnath Singh (Defence), Amit Shah (Home), Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Agriculture), and Nirmala Sitharaman (Finance) have been named as ex-officio members.
Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan has replaced his predecessor Narendra Singh Tomar as an ex-officio member.
The government has also increased the number of special invitees from five to 11, including five ministers from the BJP’s allies — H D Kumaraswamy (JD-S), Jitan Ram Manjhi (HAM), Rajiv Ranjan Singh (JD-U), K R Naidu (TDP) and Chirag Paswan (LJP-Ram Vilas).
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The special invitees now include Union Ministers Nitin Gadkari (Road Transport and Highways), Jagat Prakash Nadda (Health), H D Kumaraswamy (Heavy Industries and Steel), Jitan Ram Manjhi (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises), and Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh (Fisheries, Animal Husbandry, and Dairying), among others, PTI reported.
Union Ministers Piyush Goyal and Ashwini Vaishnaw, who were special invitees earlier, are not on the list this time. Gadkari, Virendra Kumar and Rao Inderjit Singh were special invitees earlier too.
These appointments follow changes in the council of ministers. The Niti Aayog, established in 2015 to replace the Planning Commission, continues its mission to drive India’s holistic development and innovation initiatives.
(With inputs from PTI)