Here is your 10-point cheat-sheet to this big story:

1.
The new National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) will act more like a think tank
or forum, say its supporters, in contrast with the Commission which imposed five-year-plans and
allocated resources to hit set economic targets.
2.

NITI will include leaders of India's 29 states and seven union territories. But its full-time
staff - a deputy chairman, Chief Executive Officer and experts - will answer directly to the 64-yearold Prime Minister, who will be chairman.
3.
The opposition Congress mocked the launch as a cosmetic relabelling exercise - the new
body's acronym-based name means 'Policy Commission' in Hindi, suggesting a less bold departure
than the English version does.
4.
Despite being blamed by critics for the slow growth that long plagued India, the
Commission survived the market reforms of the early 1990s, riling Mr Modi with its interventions
when he was Chief minister of industry and investor friendly Gujarat.
5.
Mr Modi, elected by a landslide last year on a promise to revive flagging growth and create
jobs, had vowed to do away with the Planning Commission that was set up in 1950 by
Congressman and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
6.
But his plans have been derided by the Congress party, which wants to defend the Nehru
legacy and describes Mr Modi's vision of "cooperative federalism" as cover for a veiled power
grab.
7.
India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, a socialist who admired Joseph Stalin's drive
to industrialize the Soviet Union, set up and chaired the Commission to map out a development
path for India's agrarian economy.
8.
In 2012, the Planning Commission was pilloried for spending some Rs 35 lakh to renovate
two office toilets, and then it was lampooned for suggesting that citizens who spent Rs 27 or more
a day were not poor.
9.
The commission had remained powerful over the decades because it had emerged as a sort
of parallel cabinet with the Prime Minister as its head.
10.
The Commission's power in allocating central funds to states and sanctioning capital
spending of the central government was deeply resented by states and various government
departments.
11. On the first day of the New Year, the Modi Government set up NITI Aayog (National
Institution for Transforming India) in place of the Planning Commission. The Prime
Minister will head the new institution tasked with the role of formulating policies and
direction for the Government. Its Governing Council will comprise State Chief Ministers
and Lt. Governors of Union Territories.
12. The Prime Minister will appoint the Aayogs Vice-Chairperson and CEO. Asian
Development Banks Former Chief Economist Arvind Panagariya is tipped to be the first
Vice Chairperson.
13. The Government plans to adopt a Bharatiya approach to development, states the resolution
of the Union Cabinet for setting up the Aayog. India needs an administration paradigm in
which the government is an enabler rather than a provider of first and last resort, it states.

14. The Aayog will recommend a national agenda, including strategic and technical advice on
elements of policy and economic matters. It will also develop mechanisms for village-level
plans and aggregate these progressively at higher levels of government.
15. The institutions of governance and policy have to adapt to new challenges and must be built
on the founding principles of the Constitution, the resolution states. On the planning
process, it states that there was a need to separate the process from the strategy of
governance.
16. Transforming India, it further states, would involve changes of two types consequences
of market forces and those that would be planned. The maturing of our institutions and
polity also entails a diminished role for centralised planning, which itself needs to be
redefined.
17. A state-of-the-art Resource Centre for good governance practices is also proposed.
18. The original Planning Commission was set up in March, 1950 through a Cabinet Resolution,
which the Modi Government scrapped in August 2014.
19. Bharatiya governance model unveiled
20. The Modi Government on Thursday unveiled its Bharatiya governance model in the
resolution for setting up the NITI (National Institution for Transforming India) Aayog.
21. The resolution, approved by the Cabinet, reaffirms that India is a diverse country with
distinct languages, faiths and cultural ecosystems. This diversity has enriched the totality of
the Indian experience, the resolution says.
22. Politically too, India has embraced a greater measure of pluralism which has reshaped the
federal consensus, it says. States do not want to be mere appendages of the Centre They
seek a decisive say in determining the architecture of economic growth and development.
23. India no longer seeks the alleviation of poverty, states the resolution, but rather its
elimination. Poverty elimination remains one of the most important metrics by which alone
we should measure our success as a nation.
24. The essence of effective governance is defined to include pro-people agenda, citizens
participation, all-round women empowerment, equality of opportunity to the youth and
transparency. Inclusiveness with special attention to the socially and economically
disadvantaged sections and minorities is also included in the scheme of effective
governance.
25. Enabling legislation

26. The role of Government as a player in the industrial and service sectors is proposed to be
reduced. Instead, Government has to focus on enabling legislation, policy making and
regulation.
27. Indias middle class, including the neo-middle class, is unique in terms of its size and
purchasing power, says the resolution. Our continuing challenge is to ensure that this
economically vibrant group remains engaged and its potential is fully realised.
28. The resolution also says that the Non-Resident Indian community spread across more than
200 countries is a significant geo-economic and geo-political strength. Future national
policies must incorporate this strength in order to broaden their participation in the new
India beyond just their financial support.
29. Urbanisation has to be viewed as an opportunity to use modern technology to create a
wholesome and secure habitat while reaping the economic benefits that it offers, states the
resolution.
30. Policy-making must focus on providing necessary support to the more than 50 million small
businesses, which are a major source of employment creation, in terms of skill and
knowledge upgrades and access to financial capital and relevant technology.

The Planning Commission (Hindi: , Yojana yog) was an institution in

the Government of India, which formulated India's Five-Year Plans, among other functions.
It was located at Yojana Bhavan, Sansad Marg, New Delhi.
In his first Independence Day speech in 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced his
intention to dissolve the Planning Commission. It has since been replaced by a new institution
named NITI Aayog.

Organisation
The composition of the Commission has undergone considerable changes since its initiation. With
the Prime Minister as the ex officio Chairman, the committee has a nominated Deputy Chairman,
who is given the rank of a full Cabinet Minister. Presently the post of vice Chairman is Arvind
Panagariya. Cabinet Ministers with certain important portfolios act as ex officio members of the
Commission, while the full-time members are experts of various fields like economics, industry,
science and general administration.

Present ex officio members of the Commission, are the Finance Minister, Agriculture Minister,
Home Minister, Health Minister, Chemicals and Fertilisers Minister, Information Technology
Minister, Law Minister, HRD Minister and Minister of State for Planning.
The Commission works through its various divisions, of which there are two kinds:

General Planning Divisions

Programme Administration Divisions

The majority of the experts in the Commission are economists, making the Commission the biggest
employer of the Indian Economic Service.

Functions
The Indian Planning Commission's functions as outlined by the Government's 1950 resolution are
following:
1. To make an assessment of the material, capital and human resources of the country,
including technical personnel, and investigate the possibilities of augmenting those are
related resources which are found to be deficient in relation to the nation's requirement.
2. To formulate a plan for the most effective and balanced utilisation of country's resources.
3. To define the stages, on the basis of priority, in which the plan should be carried out and
propose the allocation of resources for the due completion of each stage.
4. To indicate the factors that tend to retard economic development.
5. To determine the conditions which need to be established for the successful execution of the
plan within the incumbent socio-political situation of the country.
6. To determine the nature of the machinery required for securing the successful
implementation of each stage of the plan in all its aspects.
7. To appraise from time to time the progress achieved in the execution of each stage of the
plan and also recommend the adjustments of policy and measures which are deemed
important vis-a-vis a successful implementation of the plan.
8. To make necessary recommendations from time to time regarding those things which are
deemed necessary for facilitating the execution of these functions. Such recommendations
can be related to the prevailing economic conditions, current policies, measures or
development programmes. They can even be given out in response to some specific
problems referred to the commission by the central or the state governments.
From a highly centralised planning system, the Indian economy is gradually moving towards
indicative planning where the Planning Commission concerns itself with the building of a longterm strategic vision of the future and decide on priorities of nation. It works out sectoral targets
and provides promotional stimulus to the economy to grow in the desired direction. It also plays an
integrative role in the development of a holistic approach to the policy formulation in critical areas
of human and economic development. In the social sector, schemes that require co-ordination and
synthesis like rural health, drinking water, rural energy needs, literacy and environment protection

have yet to be subjected to coordinated policy formulation. It has led to multiplicity of agencies.
The commission has now been trying to formulate an integrated approach to deal with this issue.
The Planning Commission has asked the States to hike the power tariff to save the ailing power
sector. It also called upon the States to utilise the power subsidy for improvement to essential
services like drinking water supply, education and health for promoting inclusive growth.