#NitiAayog is trending. That's a good sign, an index ofpublic involvement in "issues" beyondDhoni retiring from Tests and "Shah Rukh Khan turning 5 on Twitter!"
But the house is divided. Those wedded to Nehruvianismfind the initiative bordering on gimmickry. The optimists, on the other hand, think Niti Aayog, "Niti" expanded to "National Institution for Transforming India," is an idea whose time has come. They believe"co-operative federalism" and ushering India's new energies are the cornerstones. The naysayers smell a rat in cooperative federalism.Even with chief ministers of states and lieutenant governors in union territories, how will Niti Aayogdifferentiate itself from the bulky NDC - National Development Council, they ask. So, here's a simple idea on how Niti Aayog can stand out from Day One. It starts from where Nripendra Misra, Ajit Seth, and SindhushreeKhullar, the PM's back office angels for Niti Aayog, decide to house it.
YojanaBhawan, the present headquarters of the Planning Commissionon Parliament Street, might seem like their obvious choice. But that can only bolster cynics demanding a differentiator. So, what if Niti Aayog is situated (and staffed) differentlyIJ Won't the operational culture have a better chanceIJ I turn here to the lucid Cabinet Note on Niti Aayog. Quoting the Mahatma, it states: "Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position".
"Reflecting this spirit and the changed dynamics of the new India, the institutions of governance and policy have to adapt to new challenges and must be built on the founding principles of the Constitution of India, the wealth of knowledge from our civilizational history and the present day socio-cultural context." So, house Niti Aayog outside of Delhi, if not north India itself!
That alone assumes a higher moral and conjectural plane. Refreshingly, the note has already stated, "The States of the Union do not want to be mere appendages of the Centre. They seek a decisive say in determining the architecture of economic growth and development. The one-size-fits-all approach, often inherent in central planning, has the potential of creating needless tensions and undermining the harmony needed for national effort."
What better way to smash "one-size-fits-all" than moving out of statist DelhiIJ They hated the Planning Commission, a Soviet-style institution described by Arun Shourie as "a parking lot for derelict cattle,"but any state will give an arm and a leg to host Niti Aayog. There's good reason thatDr.BR Ambedkar's view has found its way into the note:"It is unreasonable to centralise powers where central control and uniformity is not clearly essential or is impracticable".
Beyond, location and Niti Ayog's cultural paradigm, equally important is that unlike the Planning Commission, Niti Aayog, atleast from available evidence in the note, won't orchestrate the annual circus of allocations to states. Can we call itdifferentiator, embedded by absenceIJ So, rather than preside over the purse strings, the unaccented folks heading Niti Aayog mightactually have timefor enabling legislation, policy making and regulation. Similarly, the objective of fostering India's traditional strength in agriculture which has increased manifold on account of the efforts of our farmers and improvements in technology.
High time also that a body worried aboutmoving from pure food security to a focus on a mix of agricultural production as well as the actual returns that farmers get from their produce. Time also we thought of 50 million small businesses.Ditto for a body with the disk space for global economics andgeo-politics, active in debates and deliberations on the global commons, especially the relatively uncharted areas. Critics must dissect the full Cabinet Note for its focus on engaging the middle class, initiating policy to unleash India's pool of entrepreneurial, scientific and intellectual capital, not to mention participation of the non-resident community, the inevitable march of urbanization, and the increasing demands on governments to reduce opacity. [http://pib.nic.in/newsite/mbErel.aspxIJrelid=114268]
(The columnist is a journalist and former editor, now serves as group head of communications at RIl and the board at Network 18. The views are personal. Tweets: @therohitbansal).