After the 9th meeting of the Governing Council of NITI Aayog, NITI Aayog CEO B.V.R. Subramaniam held a press conference. He said that CMs of 10 states remained absent from the meeting. Chief Ministers of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Telangana, Bihar, Delhi, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand and Puducherry did not attend the meeting. Along with this, after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, NITI Aayog has also given clarification on the allegation of switching off the mic of Mamata Banerjee.
On Mamata Banerjee’s allegation of switching off the mic, Niti Aayog said that the Chief Minister of West Bengal was present in the meeting, she requested for time before lunch. During this she (Mamata) gave her statement. Everyone was given 7 minutes time in the meeting. The Defense Minister had only hinted about the time. We respectfully listened and noted what Mamata Banerjee said. Even after Mamata left the meeting, her Chief Secretary was waiting in the room.
What was the agenda of the meeting?
The CEO of NITI Aayog said that the agenda of the meeting was developed India. A vision document was presented by NITI Aayog regarding making life easier, drinking water, sanitation and land. Uttarakhand, UP have vision documents. Whereas MP, Chhattisgarh, Assam, Bihar are in the queue to make the vision document.
‘It is necessary to plan for the rapidly aging population’
NITI Aayog said that states do not have a system like the Government of India to keep track of these developments, there is a need to plan now for the rapidly aging population after 2047. Some states have crossed this limit. Maybe they are moving towards a declining population, thinking about managing demography is something we never thought about 20 years ago. The Prime Minister talked about zero poverty. Now our target is zero poverty, so the question is whether we can declare the villages as zero poverty.
‘Chandrababu Naidu got 20 minutes but I got only 5 minutes’
Before the NITI Aayog clarification, Mamata Banerjee said in Kolkata that Chandrababu Naidu got 20 minutes to speak in the meeting. Chief Ministers of Assam, Arunachal, Chhattisgarh and Goa also spoke for 15-20 minutes. But I was allowed to speak only for 5 minutes. People started stopping me by ringing the bell, I said ok you don’t want to listen to Bengal and I boycotted the meeting and went away.