Niti Aayog vice chairman Arvind Panagariya gave his resignation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday, and announced that he was returning to academics. His twitter handle, @Apanagariya, however, has not made any announcement, comment or statement so far. It was a throwback Tuesday for the country that remembered former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan who had said, after resigning, that he was returning to his first love, academia. But that the Modi government and Rajan were not exactingly hitting it off was public knowledge. Panagariya did not show any signs of not being able to work comfortably with his boss, the Niti Aayog chairman, the prime minister.
An eminent economics professor from Columbia University who had taken two years public service leave to work to transform India had been brought into this high profile post with cabinet rank by Modi himself. Panagariya had been talking about how obsolete the idea of a Delhi-based central commission to plan for the entire country was. The states should do it, while an institution in the capital should ideate, chart, map and think of how to transform the country, he had said.
Modi lost no time in bringing him to India, and scrapping the Planning Commission. In its place at the Yojana Bhavan came up the NITI Aayog—National Institute for Transformation of India, Aayog.
Its website describes it as a premier think tank of the government of India, that Niti provides critical knowledge, innovation and entrepreneurial support to the country. It also describes itself as a state of the art resource centre, a repository of research on good governance and best practices.
When the entire country screamed jobless growth, virtually slapping prime minister Narendra Modi on his face for not fulfilling one of the biggest poll promises he made in 2014 Lok Sabha campaign, there was one man defending him in what ever way he could: Panigariya.
He went on record that the current survey system was not able to capture the job growth! Not just said that, but he also announced that NITI Aayog will come up with a new survey mechanism that can capture the job growth. He believed that while unemployment rates were not high, it was the under employment that posed a challenge. That was less than two months ago.
Panagariya may have been brought to head an institution like NITI by Modi in January 2015, but three years before that, the government had awarded him the Padma Bhushan. He was author of books such as “India : The Emerging Giant” (2008) and “Why Growth Matters”; the latter with with Prof Jagdish Bhagwati, who was also said to be in the race for the job that Panagariya eventually got.
About five months ago, Niti Aayog released the “Three Year Action Agenda : 2017-18 to 2019-20”, which in Panagariya's words, offered “ambitious proposals for policy changes within a relatively short period”.
Under him, the Aayog had recommended privatisation and closure of sick public sector units. The cabinet approved, but thereafter nothing happened . One of the sick units was Air India, whose disinvestment process has started.
But things could not have been easy for him, given the long system, beginning with a group of ministers. The crucial labour reforms, on which (along with credit) depended growth in the manufacturing sector and job creation in the organised industrial sector, had not taken off.
Some sections of the Sangh Parivar have often questioned the wisdom of bringing talent from overseas for jobs such as Panagariya's. Whether that lobby was responsible for his abrupt decision to leave is not clear.
But much of the curiosity about Panagariya's exit is—will he now talk about demonetisation that came on the heels of Rajan's exit?
