NITI Aayog reconstituted; 15 union ministers including from NDA allies made part of it

The Narendra Modi-led NDA government on Tuesday, 16 July reconstituted the NITI Aayog, with four full-time members and 15 union ministers, including from BJP allies, as either ex-officio members or special invitees.

PM Narendra Modi remains the chairperson and economist Suman K Bery will continue to be the vice-chairperson of NITI Aayog, according to an official notification.

Scientist V K Saraswat, agricultural economist Ramesh Chand, paediatrician V K Paul and macro-economist Arvind Virmani will also continue to be full-time members of the government think-tank.

The four ex-officio members will be Union Ministers Rajnath Singh (Defence), Amit Shah (Home), Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Agriculture) and Nirmala Sitharaman (Finance).

The prime minister has approved the revised composition of the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog), the notification said.

The special invitees in the reconstituted NITI Aayog will be 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), Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh (Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying).

Other special invitees are Union Ministers Virendra Kumar (Social Justice and Empowerment), Kinjarapu Rammohan Naidu (Civil Aviation), Jual Oram (Tribal Affairs), Annpurna Devi (Women and Child Development), Chirag Paswan (Food Processing Industries) and Rao Inderjit Singh (Statistics and Programme Implementation).

Kumaraswamy belongs to NDA partner JD-S, Manjhi is from Hindustani Awam Morcha, Rajiv Ranjan Singh is from JD-U, Naidu belongs to TDP and Paswan is from Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas).

National Institution for Transforming India, better known as 'NITI Aayog', was constituted in 2015 when the Modi government chose to scrap the 65-year-old Planning Commission.

"Embracing a vision for holistic development and innovation, NITI Aayog is on a journey of transformative initiatives that promise to redefine India's future," the Aayog said in a Facebook post.

The government has reconstituted the NITI Aayog following changes in the council of ministers.