NEW DELHI: In a major administrative overhaul, former Chief Economic Adviser Ashok Lahiri was on Saturday appointed the vice chairman of NITI Aayog. He will succeed current vice chairman Suman Bery. Prime Minister is the chairman of the Niti Aayog.
An active member of the BJP in West Bengal, Lahiri is currently serving as an MLA from Balurghat. However, he is not contesting the ongoing assembly elections. He served as India’s Chief Economic Adviser from 2002 to 2007, spanning the tenures of former prime ministers Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh. He was also a member of the Fifteenth Finance Commission.
Apart from holding several institutional roles in the government, he also served the Director of the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy and held the role of consultant with the World Bank and senior economist at the International Monetary Fund.
Alongside the leadership change, the government also appointed KV Raju, Gobardhan Das, Abhay Karandikar, and M Srinivas as full-time members of the NITI Aayog. Raju currently serves as a part-time member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister and has advised multiple state governments.
Das heads the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Bhopal, while Karandikar is Secretary in the Department of Science and Technology and a former IIT director. Srinivas is the Director of AIIMS, Delhi.