Suman Bery, an experienced policy economist and research administrator, took over as Vice Chairperson of NITI Aayog from 01 May. Before this, he was a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi and a non-resident fellow at Bruegel, an economic policy research institution in Brussels. He succeeds Rajiv Kumar.
Bery had his Master’s in Public Affairs from Princeton and an undergraduate degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Magdalen College, University of Oxford. He started his career with the World Bank in 1972, wherein he held different positions before taking charge as the lead economist.
He has also been a member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (during Manmohan Singh’s government), the National Statistical Commission and the Technical Advisory Committee of Reserve Bank of India.
Parameswaran Iyer, A 1981 batch UP cadre civil servant, has been appointed CEO of NITI Aayog. Iyer headed the World Bank-assisted Uttar Pradesh Rural Water Supply and Environmental Sanitation Project, Swajal, to ensure drinking water to every home. In 2016, he was appointed Secretary to the Government, Drinking Water and Sanitation and led the Open Defecation Free India movement. He led Prime Minister Modi’s flagship Swachch Bharat Mission and is credited with building thousands of toilets. He earned the sobriquet Toilet Man and gave India the concept of the Swachhagrahi: people who would persuade communities to build toilets and end open defecation.
Iyer’s predecessor at NITI Aayog, Amitabh Kant, a 1980 batch Kerala-cadre IAS officer, was the brain behind several development initiatives of the country like “Make in India”, Startup India, “Incredible India” and “God’s Own Country” which positioned and branded India and Kerala as leading manufacturing and tourist destinations.
Kant also conceptualised and executed the “Atithi Devo Bhava (Guest is God)” campaign to train cab drivers, tourist guides… and make them stakeholders in the tourism development process. He was also the National Project Director of the Rural Tourism Project of UNDP which made a paradigm shift in spreading tourism to Indian villages.
Kant has served as Secretary, the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion and had worked as CEO of the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor Development Corporation (DMICDC).
Kant has been appointed as the new Sherpa of the G20 countries. (G20 is a grouping of 19 major developed and emerging economies and the European Union). India will take over the G20 presidency from Indonesia in December. Kant has been among the most eloquent proponents of the government’s economic policies in the mass media and public fora. Will the reticent KeralBram be as assertive?
