Price of the Modi Years

by Aakar Patel

The abolition of the Planning Commission by Modi had severed the political link that was present between the Union and the states. The Planning Commission was concerned with the development of states. Its replacement, the NITI Aayog operates as Modi’s personal think-tank; there is no accountability and therefore it is free to do whatever takes its or, more precisely, Modi’s fancy. It has sprung to the defence of Modi’s most eccentric initiatives and provided some convoluted justifications for them. It has busied itself with producing clickbait lists—aspirational districts, innovation index—and engaged in other meaningless and ultimately pointless exercises. Every so often it makes asinine statements.70 NITI has no real relationship with the states, unlike the Planning Commission, with which they had, whether positively or negatively, as with chief minister Modi, robust engagement.