The government has reconstituted the NITI Aayog, appointing Ashok Kumar Lahiri as its vice chairman and four new full-time members.

Lahiri called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday following his appointment. After the meeting, Modi posted on social media congratulating him and the new full-time members — economist K V Raju, AIIMS director M Srinivas, Science and Technology Department Secretary Abhay Karandikar and IISER Bhopal director Gobardhan Das. They will replace V K Paul, V K Saraswat, Ramesh Chand and Arvind Virmani.

Modi’s tweet also mentioned former cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba, who was appointed a full-time member last year and has been retained.

Lahiri, a former Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) and a member of the 15th Finance Commission, will take over from Suman Bery, whose term ends later this month.

Why the appointment matters

Unlike his predecessor, Bery, who was a career economist and research administrator, Lahiri has extensive experience in administration and electoral affairs and is currently a BJP MLA in West Bengal.

Lahiri’s appointment comes in the midst of the West Bengal elections and at a time when NITI Aayog has begun playing a larger role in pushing for cross-sector reforms. As an economist, Lahiri had been known to advocate for better partnership between the three levels of governments, Union, state and local, and efficacy at the grassroots.

Das is the second member to be appointed from West Bengal amid the ongoing state elections.

Lahiri’s experience

In the central government, Lahiri had served as the CEA between October 2002 and June 2007, appointed under the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government and continuing under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In Bengal, he had been critical of the Communist governments and a proponent of encouraging entrepreneurship for reviving business sentiment in Bengal.

Apart from the post of CEA, Lahiri has been an Economic Advisor in the Ministry of Finance, has had stints in the International Monetary Fund as Senior Economist and in the World Bank as Consultant, was director of the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy between February 1998 and October 2002, a member of the Fifteenth Finance Commission, and a non-executive chairman of the Bandhan Bank. He retired as executive director from the Asian Development Bank in June 2013.

In his book India in Search of Glory, Lahiri wrote that while democracy has served India well in building the nation, socio-economic development has been tepid in the first seven decades after Independence. He wrote that as Indian democracy matures and people benefit from higher incomes, less poverty, more education, and urbanisation, such development is likely to accelerate.

Lahiri has also been critical of several populist schemes introduced before elections and its impact on the Budget. He has warned that this financial discipline, if left unchecked, could lead to a crisis in some states. He has also raised issues of underinvestment by state governments to deliver basic services.