Niti Aayog vice-chairman Arvind Panagariya steps down, says he will return to academia

Mangalore Today News Network

New Delhi, Aug 01, 2017 : Niti Aayog vice-chairman Arvind Panagariya on Tuesday resigned from his position and said he will return to academia. He said he has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to relieve him of his duties by August 31 as he was not getting an extension of leave from Columbia University.

 

In August 2014, PM Modi had announced that the Planning Commission had become redundant, and handpicked Panagariya, the Jagdish Bhagwati Professor of Indian Political Economy at Columbia University, to head the organisation in its new avatar, the National Institution for Transforming India or NITI Aayog. After former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, the Indian-American is the second high profile academic-economist to quit a top job in India to return to the teaching profession in the US.

A former Chief Economist of the Asian Development Bank, the 64-year-old had also worked with the World Bank, IMF and UNCTAD in various capacities. He holds a PhD degree in Economics from Princeton University.

In March 2012, Panagariya was honoured with Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian award the country bestows in any field.

Describing the Goods and Services Tax (GST) and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Act as some of the biggest economic reforms undertaken by the NDA government, Panagariya had earlier stated that India would witness GDP growth of 7.5 per cent in 2017-18 before entering a sustained growth trajectory of over 8 per cent before the end of the present government’s term ends in 2019.

Commenting on his successor, Panagariya said he has no one in mind nor was he going to suggest any name to the government. He also stated that he would be writing a sequel to his ‘India: The Emerging Giant’ which was published in 2008.


courtesy:Indian Express