Role of NITI Aayog in Relation to Indian Public Policies: A Study

Abstract

“NITI Aayog” (National Institution for Transforming India Aayog) was introduced on the 1st January 2015, as the replacement for ‘Planning Commission’. NITI Aayog overviews the monitoring and adoption of ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs) and promote competitive and cooperative federalism among the States and Government undertakings. This is a Government of India policy ‘think tank’ that aims ‘to foster involvement and participation in the economic policy making process by the State Governments of India’. The Prime Minister serves as the Ex-officio Chairman of NITI Aayog. The NITI Aayog may provide a critical directional and strategic input in regard to developmental processes of India. Indeed, it focuses on the cooperative federalism of country. The centre-to-state one-way flow of policy, the hallmark of the Planning Commission era, has been replaced by a genuine and continuing partnership with and among the Indian States. “Public Policy” is a primarily an instrument to guide social actions in accordance with certain predetermined goals. Thus, the public policy is a ‘directional means seeking to fulfil ideology driven aims which are usually conceived out of a dialectical interaction between the governments and governed’. In view of this, the present research was carried out to study the ‘Role of NITI Aayog with regard to Public Policies of India.