Niti Aayog will help states select central schemes: Jaitley

The Niti Aayog will financially empower states as they can choose the central government schemes based on their requirements, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said here Wednesday.

"The Niti Aayog... (will) financially empower the states so that they can decide what schemes on those central fundings help them the most and therefore this is going to further... empower the states," Jaitley said at the two-day Bengal Global Business Summit here.

Justifying the functionality of the National Institution for Transforming India (Niti Aayog) - that has replaced the Planning Commission - Jaitley said the same central scheme applicable to one state may not hold much relevance to another state.

"The same central scheme which is applicable to Punjab may not be applicable to Tripura... Now 67 central schemes on the principle of one-size-fits-all being applicable to each state is no longer applicable," he said.

The finance minister said the Niti Aayog will be a panel comprising the prime minister, some central ministers and the chief ministers of all states.

He said the "traditional structure of control and command economy" needed to be replaced as India has changed.

The Niti Aayog was formed Jan 1 with the objective of providing the central and state governments with relevant strategic and technical advice on the economy.