Columbia University’s Arvind Panagariya, who is now the first chief executive officer (CEO) of the NITI Ayog, believe that the high rate of growth in the economy, seen in the first term of the UPA government, was largely a result of the reforms undertaken by the Atal regime. ‘In the last fiscal year of Vajpayee’s rule 2003–04, growth shifted to over 8 per cent and remained there for a decade,’ Panagariya wrote in the Times of India on 25 December 2012.
