Arvind Panagariya resigns as Vice-Chairman of Niti Aayog

New Delhi: The first vice-chairman of Niti Aayog, Arvind Panagariya, has resigned from his post as per the reports on Tuesday. Before he joined Niti Aayog, he was a professor of economics at Columbia University. He also served as chief economist at the Asian Development Bank.

His last day in office would be August 31. Panagariya has said that he will return to academia, reports DC.

RBI governor Raghuram Rajan who is also an economist walked out of doors of the RBI after months of speculation about him and his ‘patchy’ relationship with the NDA government.

In 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that his government will scrap decades old Planning Commission and bring a think tank, which became ‘Niti Aayog’.

After this came into existence, Panagariya found himself as the front runner for the vice-chairman’s post. Like Planning Commission, Prime Minister Modi is the chairman of Niti Aayog.

In addition to being an economist, he has written/edited as many as ten books. However, the reason for his resignation was not known. It may be noted that Panagariya as Niti chairman had thrown his weight behind each and every policy move of Narendra Modi government. He had also supported the highly-publicised demonetization termed as anti-black money crackdown.