Parameswaran Iyer eased out of ‘adrift’ NITI Aayog; Modi’s J&K pick steps in
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, February 20: Parameswaran Iyer, who made his name more as a prolific newspaper columnists, was eased out of the NITI Aayog, with arguably the most insignificant stint, lasting about eight months. Former Jammu and Kashmir chief secretary BVR Subrahmanyam has been appointed successor of Iyer as the chief executive officer of the think tank panel.
Subrahmanyam has also served as secretary in the Ministry of Commerce. Iyer will leave for the US as an Executive Director of the World Bank, which is known to be a post-retirement rehabilitation for bureaucrats who have been docile to the ruling political dispensation.
In eight months, Iyer was found to be clueless in the NITI Aayog. After a long stint of Amitabh Kant as the CEO of NITI Aayog, who was seen to have run the think tank panel as his fiefdom, Iyer’s eight months stints saw the think tank panel hosting the Governing Council Meeting and two meetings of the chief secretaries of the states to carry forward the narrative of the ruling NDA at the Centre against the politics of freebies.
“The NITI Aayog in the last eight months failed to bring any report worthy of being a national think tank. The office of CEO was hardly seen in action. He shunned media. Media shunned him as well. The think tank panel was not seen doing anything which was worth reporting in the media,” said a long-term NITI Aayog covering journalist from a leading media organisation.
Iyer also earned the wrath of the media for the gag order to the officials of the NITI Aayog from speaking to the press even while the circular to which the diktat was attributed to had the authorship of Kant.
“Subrahmanyam possibly has been brought to work closely with the industry on the lines of Kant. The government may have sensed that the bridge with the industry has been broken after the exit of Kant, which could not be built by Iyer, who seemed distant to the Modi government’s penchant for the think tank producing slogans such as $5 trillion economy along with visible industry bond,” said another observer of the think tank panel.
It may be noted that the NITI Aayog had originally been given the mandate to prepare Three Years Action Plan, Seven Years Action Plan as part of the mid-term and long-term ideation, while the Modi government had also added the responsibility to write a roadmap for India@2047. Except for the ‘Three Years Action Plan’, the NITI Aayog has not shown its report card on the original mandate.
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