NITI Aayog to hire young blood

News

• Centre plans to expand NITI Ayog’s workforce at the bottom by bringing in more young professionals while reducing the number of mid-level officials.
• The restructuring committee at the Aayog, headed by its CEO Sindhushree Khullar, will soon finalise the required workforce, including the new guidelines for hiring young professionals (YPs) at higher salaries.
• The revised guidelines may lead to up to 20% hike in salaries of young professionals besides introducing a maximum age limit to be hired as a young professional in the Aayog.
• According to the official, the Narendra Modi government plans to increase the number of young professionals in the Aayog to up to 100.
• As per existing guidelines, issued in May last year, just days before the end of the UPA-II government, young professionals are paid between Rs 30,000-50,000, which was a 20% increase from Rs 25,000-40,000 paid to them since 2009 when the concept was first introduced by then commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia.

Purpose

• The new structure of the Aayog is expected to align with the needs of the government that aims to use the expertise of this think tank for developing its long-term growth agenda as well as evaluating and monitoring of the government’s flagship programmes.

Source ET