After Finance Ministry, NITI Aayog now out of bound for media
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, March 7: Following in the footsteps of the Ministry of Finance, the NITI Aayog has also turned its back on the media. The PIB accreditated journalists were in for rude shocks on Tuesday, as the security personnel told them that only a few “elected list of media persons can now enter the NITI Aayog premises by showing the PIB card”.
Also, taking a cue from the Ministry of Finance, the NITI Aayog has also locked the media room on the second floor, which had been dedicated for the journalists covering the institution since the Planning Commission days. It may be recalled that the Finance Ministry after Nirmala Sitharaman had taken the charge had made the premises out of bound for journalists, and the media room was also taken away.
“I was stopped from entering the NITI Aayog today by the security personnel on Tuesday. They didn’t budge even after I showed them the PIB card. They pulled out a list purportedly sent to them by the PIB which had the names of a few journalists, saying that only these scribes are allowed to enter the premises by showing their PIB cards,” said a senior journalist, who has been covering the NITI Aayog since its inception.
Another journalist said that the Room Number 270, popular among the policy journalists in the national capital, has been locked. “It seems that the NITI Aayog has taken away the room from the media. This room had survived several regime change in the national capital, and stayed with the media. There were attempts to take away the room earlier also, but at the intervention of the former chief executive officer Amitabh Kant the move was abandoned,” said another senior policy journalist, who has been regular to the NITI Aayog building since the days of the Planning Commission.
Since the exit of Kant from the NITI Aayog, his successors Parmeswaran Iyer and BVR Subrahmanyam have seemingly adopted the arms’ length approach with the media. Sources said that the officials have been warned against interacting with the media persons. The think tank panel has also barred its officials from writing in the newspapers until they have been vetted at the top level.
The NITI Aayog vice chairman Suman Bery had not responded for a reaction sought on e-mail. It may also be stated that Bery discontinued the practice of media interactions on policy matters by the think tank vice chairman.
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