Thursday, August 3, 2017

Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Arvind Panagariya resigns: Shocking !! Why?

 I wonder, how many people know Arvind Panagariya ! I accept, even I did not really know, till couple of days back. In fact, while preparing for this post, when I tried searching for him on Google, I mistakenly entered name Ashok  Panagariya for searching a couple of times instead of Arvind, and landed up on a page of a neurologist!!
He was  the Vice-Chairman of Niti Aayog, another name, I doubt, most of the people around are not aware. Niti Aayog is a new thing in business, that has taken over the task of Planning Commission of India, back then headed by the famous Montek Singh Ahluwalia. Oh ! you must be knowing him well for at least two reasons, One for the famous Rs. 32 based Poverty line definition  and second for the renovation of toilet with just Rs. 35 Lakhs

Coming out of the shadow of such planning commission, and forming a new institution Niti Aayog, which has done pretty significant work with privitization  of a few sick government units and extending the same to Air India, bench marking reforms in medical and higher education and probably a few more tasks to talk about.
Although, Niti Aayog is still in its infancy, it seem to have done  some promising work in a short time. And all this could only because of this person, Arvind Panagariya at the helm of the Aayog. Looking at the way of his working and his sincerity, it is not that difficult to believe that he is an academician, working at Columbia University, who took this opportunity as a challange and successfully carried it for almost 3years. And now, as per news, because of the limitations of nature of his job, he needs to return to his old job, i.e. to academics. It seems intriguing to see that a person is ready to give up a prestigious position and wants to return to common position of an academician. But that is the fun, people don't realize. A person who loves to create new dishes in his kitchen, won't be happy, if asked to cater service to 1000 people. There may be lot of money in it, may it be a big challenge, but it still can not restrict him from returning to his old love, of creating something new, rather than applying already facts.
A few news items initially started coming out, where his resignation was shown as a sign of the rift between him and the government. But recently, he personally spoke about it and cleared air behind his resignation.

I guess, there may be issues between him and the government. But identifying his resignation as the response of those issues could be far fetched. I would rather believe his personal interview and rely on the words of an academician.

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