 "Ajay Chhibber")
The fate of the Planning Commission's two remaining attached offices - Institute of Applied Manpower Research (IAMR) and National Rainfed Area Authority (NRAA) - has become uncertain following the removal of the head of another attached office, the Independent Evaluation Office (IEO), Ajay Chhibber (pictured) last week.
The Narendra Modi government terminated Chhibber's services on August 29, giving him one month's salary in lieu of his notice period. However, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) might get a new identity once the National Identification Authority of India Bill is passed in Parliament. This will make UIDAI an autonomous body.
The PM's Economic Advisory Council, which is also an attached office, has not been reconstituted after the Modi government took charge.
According to officials in the know, the officers and staff working in IEO could be merged with the new 'think tank' the government is contemplating; the same could be the fate of IAMR and NRAA employees, they added.
Santosh Mehrotra, the long-standing director-general of IAMR, retired from service last month. Chhibber, who had joined the IEO last year, was removed as part of the reorganisation of the Planning Commission. In one of its report after the Modi government took charge, IEO had recommended winding up of the Planning Commission and replacing it with an entirely new entity.
Officials said a move is afoot to retain 40 per cent of the Commission's existing staff, with the rest being posted to their parent cadre. Most of the 31-odd technical divisions currently operational in the Commission could also be attached to their ministries concerned, such as agriculture division with the agriculture ministry.
In his maiden Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Modi had announced the abolition of the Planning Commission and replacing it with a new body. Subsequently, a special open forum was created on mygov.nic.in for inviting suggestions for the new institution. The government also held a high-level consultative meeting to discuss the framework of the new body replacing the Commission.
Among those who participated in the meeting included former ministers Yashwant Sinha and Y K Alagh; former Planning Commission members Bimal Jalan and Saumitra Chaudhury; Bharatiya Janata Party leader M J Akbar; former chief economic advisor Shankar N Acharya; Business Standard Chairman T N Ninan; National Statistical Commission chairman Pronab Sen; senior journalist T C A Srinivasa Raghavan; former finance secretary Sumit Bose; economist Surjit Bhalla; Centre for Policy Research chairman Pratap Bhanu Mehta; and ICRIER director Rajat Kathuria.
Some officials said experts at the meeting arrived at a broad consensus that allocation of Plan funds should be handed over to the finance ministry as and when the new body takes shape.
