Ex-Ficci Secy General Rajiv Kumar to be NITI Aayog vice-chairman

Economist Dr Rajiv Kumar was on Saturday night named the new vice-chairman of NITI Aayog, five days after the incumbent, Indian-American Arvind Panagariya, announced that he would quit to return to academics in the USA. The Government also appointed Dr Vinod Paul, a pediatrician at the AIIMS, as a member of the NITI Aayog, an official spokesman said.

Kumar, who holds a DPhil in economics from Oxford University and a PhD from Lucknow University, is a senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR). Earlier, he was Secretary General of industry chamber Ficci and had also served as Director and Chief Executive of the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER). He was a member of the National Security Advisory Board between 2006 and 2008.

He has also served as chief economist of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and held senior positions with the Asian Development Bank, the Indian Ministry of Industries and the Ministry of Finance. Kumar is also a member of boards of several international and national institutions, including the King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center in Riyadh, the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and Asia in Jakarta, the State Bank of India, and the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade.