Mid-term review of 12th plan at an advanced stage: NITI Aayog

One year since abolishing the 65-year-old Planning Commission, NITI Aayog on Thursday issued a list of major tasks it has undertaken and their status so far.

The Aayog in a statement said the mid-term appraisal of the 12th Five Year Plan taskforce on elimination of poverty, taskforce on agricultural development and sub-group of chief ministers on rationalisation of centrally-sponsored schemes are in advance stages.

Another set of tasks on which the NITI Aayog is at an advance stages is the sub-group of chief ministers on Skill Development, Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and an expert committee on innovation and  entrepreneurship. Other work in progress for the Aayog is a survey on business regulatory environment in the states and UTs, national energy policy, harmonisation of regulatory regime across infrastructure sectors, and study of electronic industry for Make in India.

The think-tank is also engaging with states on creation of project monitoring groups in each state and identification of redundant laws for repeal, NITI Aayog said in the statement.  Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day speech last year had announced disbanding the erstwhile Planning Commission to form the new body NITI Aayog.

NITI Aayog also quoted a portion of Modi's speech in its statement released on Thursday. “I believe that when Planning Commission was constituted, it was done on the basis of the circumstances and the needs of those time. So, I am saying from the rampart of the Red Fort that it is very old system and it will have to be rejuvenated...Very shortly, we are about to move in a direction when this institute would be functioning in place of Planning Commission," Modi had said on Independence Day last year.

NITI Aayog would suitably undertake its mid-term appraisal so that a shared vision of national development agenda and important national initiatives are incorporated for effective implementation in the remaining period of the Plan, Minister of State for Planning Rao Inderjit Singh said in Parliament.

“NITI Aayog is in the advance stage of finalisation of the chapters of the mid-term appraisal of the 12th Five Year Plan,” he said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.