PM Modi reconstitutes NITI Aayog; Amit Shah, Nirmala Sitharaman, Raj Nath Singh, Narendra Singh Tomar ex-officio members

Rajiv Kumar, vice chairman of NITI Aayog, poses for a photograph inside his office in New Delhi. (Reuters Photo)

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi Thursday approved the reconstitution of policy think tank National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog and reappointed Rajiv Kumar as its vice-chairman. Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Raj Nath Singh, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar have been appointed as its ex-officio members.

The Prime Minister will continue to be the Chairperson of the think tank. Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, Social Justice Minister Thawar Chand Gehlot, Commerce and Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, and Statistics Minister Rao Inderjit Singh will be special invitees to the panel.

VK Saraswat, Professor Ramesh Chand and Dr VK Paul will continue to be NITI Ayog's full-time members.

The NITI Aayog was formed via a resolution of the Union Cabinet on January 1, 2015, by the Modi government after scrapping the Planning Commission, which was instituted in 1950.

This reconstitution comes ahead NITI Aayog Governing Council's first meet on June 15, after the Modi government's return to power.