NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant is set to leave the government policy think tank at the end of June, after his six-year-long term. He will be replaced by former Secretary of the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation Parameswaran Iyer.
Amitabh Kant took over as the NITI Aayog CEO in 2016, then got an extension, by a year, in June 2021. Kant drove the policy push in areas related to industrial development, technology and investment. He is seen as having played a key role in the government’s flagship ‘Make in India’ scheme and was also behind the Aspirational Districts Programme, targeted at improving the socio-economic outcomes in some of the most backward districts.
Kant pushed the Ease of Doing Business initiative as the Secretary of the former Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, which led to the emergence of state-specific rankings.
Parameswaran Iyer led the government’s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, a campaign to eliminate open defecation by constructing over 90 million toilets in rural India, then resigning in July 2020. He later went on to work with the World Bank in the US.
Iyer took voluntary retirement from the IAS after 17 years in service. Later, he joined the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation as Secretary. Iyer earlier worked as Senior Rural Water Sanitation Specialist at the United Nations.
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