Which of the following statements about NITI Aayog is correct?
- A.It allocates plan funds to the states every year
- B.It is a constitutional body created by an amendment
- C.It is an advisory think tank without the power to allocate funds
- D.It replaced the Finance Commission
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is C. NITI Aayog advises the Union and the state governments, prepares strategy, monitors programmes and acts as a forum for the states, but no money passes through it; that is the sharpest difference from the Planning Commission it replaced.
Option A describes the old Planning Commission, which approved state plans and released plan assistance, a power that gave it great leverage over the states. Option B is wrong because the institution was created by a cabinet resolution on 1 January 2015, so it is neither constitutional nor statutory. Option D is wrong because the Finance Commission is a constitutional body under Article 280 and continues to recommend the sharing of central taxes with the states; NITI Aayog replaced the Planning Commission alone. Statement questions from this chapter almost always turn on these two distinctions.
Read the full article: Planning in India and NITI Aayog: Plans, Models and Bodies
Practice Questions
View allThe Planning Commission of India was set up in which year?
- A.1947
- B.1950
- C.1952
- D.1956
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The Planning Commission was constituted on 15 March 1950 by a resolution of the Union Cabinet, with the Prime Minister as its chairman, and it drafted every Five Year Plan until it was replaced in 2015.
Read the full explanation →NITI Aayog came into existence on which date?
- A.1 January 2015
- B.15 March 2014
- C.1 April 2016
- D.26 January 2015
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On that date a cabinet resolution created the National Institution for Transforming India in place of the Planning Commission, keeping the Prime Minister as the head of the new body but changing its work from allocating funds to advising governments.
Read the full explanation →The Second Five Year Plan of India was based on the model given by
- A.P. C. Mahalanobis
- B.Harrod and Domar
- C.M. Visvesvaraya
- D.V. K. R. V. Rao
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The statistician who founded the Indian Statistical Institute gave the Second Plan its framework, in which investment was directed towards heavy and basic industries such as steel, machinery and power on the argument that they would build the capacity to produce everything else.
Read the full explanation →The plan holiday in Indian planning was declared after the failure of which Five Year Plan?
- A.Second Plan
- B.Third Plan
- C.Fourth Plan
- D.Fifth Plan
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The plan of 1961 to 1966 was overwhelmed by the war with China in 1962, the war with Pakistan in 1965 and a severe drought, so instead of a new five year plan the government ran three annual plans from 1966 to 1969, a stretch called the plan holiday.
Read the full explanation →The slogan Garibi Hatao, the removal of poverty, is associated with which Five Year Plan?
- A.Third Plan
- B.Fourth Plan
- C.Fifth Plan
- D.Sixth Plan
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Running from 1974 to 1979, it took the removal of poverty and the attainment of self-reliance as its twin objectives, and it is remembered by the slogan Garibi Hatao.
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