India swapped its 65-year-old Planning Commission for a think tank
For decades India's economy was steered by five-year plans drawn up in Delhi. In 2015 the government abolished the Planning Commission and created NITI Aayog, a policy think tank meant to work from the bottom up, with every state's chief minister on its council instead of targets handed down from the centre.
The change moved quickly. On 29 May 2014 an evaluation office recommended scrapping the old commission, and on 13 August that year the Union Cabinet did so. A Cabinet resolution on 1 January 2015 set up the new body, whose name stands for National Institution for Transforming India, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired its first meeting on 8 February 2015. The finance minister of the day argued that the commission suited a command economy, and that a single plan for every state no longer made sense in a country whose regions were at very different stages of development.
The design reflects that idea of cooperative rather than bargaining federalism. The Prime Minister chairs it, and a governing council brings together chief ministers of the states and lieutenant governors of union territories. Regional councils can be convened for problems spanning several states. A full-time core includes a vice-chairperson nominated by the Prime Minister, full-time and part-time members drawn partly from universities and research institutes, ex-officio ministers, and a chief executive with the rank of a secretary to the government.
Much of its output is practical. In 2017 it published a handbook gathering key statistics for every state and union territory into one place, replacing scattered sources. It has explored a national blockchain network nicknamed IndiaChain, intended to link with the digital backbone behind Aadhaar. A behavioural insights unit, launched in November 2019 with the Gates Foundation and inaugurated in Bill Gates's presence, applies nudge techniques to programmes such as the Jal Jeevan Mission, which aimed to bring a tap connection to every rural household.
Not all its plans are uncontroversial. A proposal worth 75,000 crore rupees to industrialise Great Nicobar Island, with a transshipment port and airport, has drawn strong objections from the Shompen and Nicobarese peoples, who fear displacement. In 2025 its chief executive noted that India produces nearly 20% of the world's data but has only 3% of global data-centre capacity.
Source: NITI Aayog
