Who is BVR Subrahmanyam, the new NITI Aayog CEO

A 1987-batch IAS officer of the Chhattisgarh cadre, Subrahmanyam belongs to Andhra Pradesh and holds an engineering degree. In 2018, he was appointed the Chief Secretary of Jammu and Kashmir. It was during his tenure that the state’s special status was scrapped.

Between 2004 and 2008, BVR Subrahmanyam assumed the position of private secretary to then-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. After a stint with the World Bank, he returned to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) in 2012 (Photo: Indian Institute of Foreign Trade)

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Former IAS officer BVR Subrahmanyam was appointed the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NITI Aayog by the government on Monday, The Indian Express reported. He is replacing Parameswaran Iyer, who has been named the Executive Director of the World Bank.

“The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the appointment of Shri BVR Subrahmanyam, IAS (Retd.) as Chief Executive Officer, NITI Aayog, vice Shri Parameswaran Iyer, upon his appointment as Executive Director, World Bank Headquarters, Washington DC, USA, for two years from the date of assumption of the charge of the post or until further orders,” a statement released by the government said.

Who is BVR Subrahmanyam?

A 1987-batch IAS officer of the Chhattisgarh cadre, Subrahmanyam belongs to Andhra Pradesh and holds an engineering degree. He also has a management degree from London Business School.

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Between 2004 and 2008, the 56-year-old officer assumed the position of private secretary to then-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. After a stint with the World Bank, he returned to the prime minister’s office (PMO) in 2012. Subrahmanyam continued working in the PMO till 2015 after which he moved back to Chhattisgarh, where he was initially a principal secretary and then became an Additional Chief Secretary (Home).

In 2018, the officer was appointed the Chief Secretary of Jammu and Kashmir. It was during his tenure that the state’s special status was scrapped and it was divided into two union territories. According to the Press Trust of India, Subrahmanyam was among a handful of officers who knew about the Centre’s decision regarding Jammu and Kashmir before its announcement.

He later became the Commerce Secretary to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

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What is the NITI Aayog?

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Formed on January 1, 2015, NITI (National Institution for Transforming India) Aayog replaced the Planning Commission after the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition came to power in 2014. The first meeting of NITI Aayog was chaired by Prime Minister Modi on February 8, 2015.

As the apex think tank of India’s government, NITI Aayog provides both directional and policy inputs. According to its website, the think tank “is developing itself as a state-of-the-art resource centre with the necessary knowledge and skills that will enable it to act with speed, promote research and innovation, provide strategic policy vision for the government, and deal with contingent issues.”

The numerous objectives of the NITI Aayog include fostering cooperative federalism, evolving a shared vision of national development priorities, sectors and strategies with the active involvement of states, and developing mechanisms to formulate credible plans at the village level and aggregate these progressively at higher levels of government.