PM Modi leads NITI Aayog meeting; Congress CMs absent, Mamata Banerjee lone opposition attendee
Niti Aayog meeting: The 9th Governing Council meeting of NITI Aayog, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, commenced on Saturday amidst notable absences. Several Chief Ministers from the INDIA bloc boycotted the meeting, protesting the Union Budget, which they criticised as "anti-federal" and "discriminatory" towards their states.
Among those who skipped the meeting were Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin (DMK), Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan (CPM), Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann (Aam Aadmi Party), and the Congress CMs of Karnataka (Siddaramaiah), Himachal Pradesh (Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu), and Telangana (Revanth Reddy). West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was the sole opposition leader in attendance.
The meeting's agenda centres on transforming India into a developed nation by 2047, fostering participative governance, and enhancing cooperation between the Centre and state governments. The focus is on improving the quality of life for both rural and urban populations by strengthening government intervention delivery mechanisms.
The NITI Aayog Governing Council, the apex body of the organisation, comprises all state chief ministers, lieutenant governors of Union Territories, and several Union ministers, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi serving as the chairman.
Key discussions at the meeting also included recommendations from the 3rd National Conference of Chief Secretaries held in December last year. The conference addressed five primary themes: access, quantity, and quality of drinking water; quality, efficiency, and reliability of electricity; accessibility, affordability, and quality of healthcare; access and quality of schooling; and accessibility, digitisation, registration, and mutation of land and property.
A vision document is being prepared to help India achieve a USD 30 trillion economy by 2047, marking the country's 100th year of independence. In 2023, NITI Aayog was tasked with consolidating 10 sectoral thematic visions into a unified vision for Viksit Bharat @2047, covering economic growth, social progress, environmental sustainability, and good governance.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar also did not attend the NITI Aayog meeting. The state was represented by Deputy Chief Ministers Samrat Choudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha. The specific reason for Kumar's absence was not immediately clear
- With inputs from agencies
