NITI Aayog’s 10th GC Meeting: Stalin shows the way to equals

Udayan Hazarika

(The writer can be reached at udayanhazarika@hotmail.com)

The much-awaited 10th Governing Council meeting of the NITI Aayog was
 held successfully in New Delhi on 24th May 2025. Of the total 36 states and UTs, as many as 31 have attended the meet. The highlight of the meeting is that Tamil Nadu CM Stalin, who remained absent in the last three meetings of the council, participated this time and pushed his cause in a befitting manner. Among those who did not attend are West Bengal, Bihar, Puducherry, Karnataka, and Kerala. In the last Council meeting, almost all opposition alliance leaders stayed away from the meeting except for the West Bengal CM, who participated but later walked out of the meeting under the pretext that she was not given a fair chance to speak in the meeting.  But this year, she skipped the meeting. The Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan sent his representative, Mr. K.N. Balagopal, a senior Cabinet colleague, to represent him. Similarly, Karnataka CM sent his speech to be read out in the meeting as he could not attend; Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, despite being in Delhi, did not attend the meeting, and finally, the Chief Minister Rangasamy (NDA) of the Union Territory of Puducherry skipped the meeting, leaving the UT unrepresented.

The Governing Council of NITI is the apex decision-making body led by PM Modi at the top, followed by members comprising the CMs of all Indian states and LT governors/CMS of all UTs and some officials of the Aayog as official members. The basic theme chosen for the meeting incidentally coincided with that of the last meeting of the Council. Last year, the theme was Vikshit Bharat, and this year the theme is titled “Viksit Rajya for Viksit Bharat by 2047”. The theme thus has a direct bearing on the states’ performances and their resultant contribution to the nation’s developing process targeted to achieve “Viksit Bharat by 2047”. Keeping in tune with this broad theme, Prime Minister Modi came up with an appeal to the states that it is time to accelerate the nation’s development process and said, “If the centre and states work like a team, we can be a developed country before 2047.” To this appeal, the states have replied with their stance at the time of presenting their state’s development profile and prospects. Mr. Modi, while making this appeal, also laid down the roadmap towards achieving Vikshit Bharat before 2047, stating that each state should choose one goal, and focusing on that goal, each state may make Bharat Vikshit—and in a similar manner, each state may attempt to make their state Vikshit—make each city Vikshit, and so on. This, in other words, implies that the process of getting developed should start with the village or a town. Thus, what is necessary is that the States must first identify the item or items through which the development process should get transmitted from the original micro unit through the State to the nation as a whole. This may be a place having potential i) to produce some items of production having global importance, ii) to become a global tourist spot, or iii) to present its traditional art, craft, and traditional sport attractively. An example has been floated that each state may develop one tourist spot in such a way that it contains all the facilities of global standards. Thus, it would be like “one state, one global destination”.

It appears that PM Modi, in his recent speech, simply summarised only one point of his last Governing Council meeting (9th meeting of the Governing Body, 2022) speech, wherein he stated Viksit Bharat can be realised through Viksit States and that the aspiration of Viksit Bharat should reach the grassroots level, i.e., each district, block, and village. For this, each state and district should create a vision for 2047 so as to realise Viksit Bharat @ 2047.” In the 9th meeting, Mr. Modi discussed certain subjects of national importance at full length but has not touched upon the actions taken on those and their present status in the present meeting. In this context, mention may be made of the PM’s call for enhancing the employability of the youths, for which he insisted that they should be trained and skilled so as to make them “employment ready”. He also insisted on the capacity building of the in-service personnel at all levels. Apart from the Administrative Staff Colleges in every state, the government has, in 2021, set up the Capacity Building Commission, which designs the training requirements of various government departments and accordingly imparts such training. Another important issue that the PM placed in the 9th meeting, before the state heads, was to make all-out efforts to attract investments. For this, he advised the States to design effective policies, programmes, and processes and underlined the necessity of putting in place the adequate infrastructure, law and order, and good governance to keep the State in an investor-friendly environment.   He directed NITI to prepare an investment-friendly charter and monitor the state situations.

These issues, however, did not come up in the present meeting. Neither the NITI nor the States made any reference to these in the meeting. However, some of the states individually indicated their progress in this respect while presenting their performance.

During the interventional session, the defence minister, Rajnath Singh, remained as moderator. Speaking for his state, the CM, Mr. Omar Abdullah, appealed to the government to share the normalisation process in the state after the Pahalgam attack. His request in this direction was undoubtedly simple, but the Centre’s response in that direction could change the scenario quickly. He appealed to the government that the central PSUs be persuaded to hold their meetings in Jammu and Kashmir, which could go a long way in resuscitating the tourism sector. Haryana CM presented Vision Documents 2047 showing the roadmap of his state’s contribution to the Vikshit Bharat programme. The CM of Jharkhand raised their basic problem of getting back mining lands and money held back (Rs 1.40 lakh crore) by the mining companies. He appealed for amendment of the Coal Bearing Areas Act. CM Andhra has placed a difficult proposition before the centre of constituting three subgroups of states formed in collaboration with the centre to look after the areas of GDP growth, population management, and leveraging artificial intelligence. Responding to PM Modi’s Vikshit Bharat, the CM of Tamil Nadu laid a corollary that to build a Vikshit Bharat, the states need their dues, and the PM’s vision must also accommodate diversity. He assured Tamil Nadu’s significant contribution to India’s vision of a $30 trillion economy. But to realise that vision, cooperative federalism must be on a strong foundation. I strongly urge that the Union Government must extend cooperation without bias to all states, including Tamil Nadu, to help them achieve their development goals.” He also renewed his demand for devolution of 50 per percent of central taxes to states. Mr. Stalin also submitted a memorandum to PM Modi requesting the release of pending funds concerning the Samgra Siksha Yojana and approval for several infrastructure projects like the expansion of the airport, the widening of NH 32, and metro rail projects in Coimbatore and Madurai, etc.

The present meeting once again showed that NITI must actively come into association with the States and establish their own identity. They need to establish a strong presence throughout the States. A mere role of a think tank cannot effectively sell out their dreams unless they come down to earth and feel the diversity of the States.