PM Modi to chair the fifth 'Niti Aayog' meeting, with focus on farm distress

New Delhi: After returning from his Bishkek meeting, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to chair the fifth meeting of the Niti Aayog's Governing Council at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Saturday.

The main focus of this meeting will be on issues like the drought situation, farm distress, rain-water harvesting and preparedness for Kharif crops.

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The five-point agenda for the meeting also includes aspirational districts programme, transforming agriculture and security related issues with special focus on left wing extremism (LWE) districts, as per an official statement.

The meeting will be attended by chief ministers, lieutenant governors of union territories, several union ministers and senior government officials. This will be the first governing council meeting under the newly elected Modi government.

The West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, however, has refused to attend the meeting, claiming it "fruitless" as the Niti Aayog has no financial powers to support state plans.

Chaired by the PM, the Governing Council includes ministers of Finance, Home, Defence, Agriculture, Commerce and Rural Development, besides state chief ministers and Niti Aayog vice chairman, CEO and members.

The Governing Council reviews the action taken on the agenda items of the previous meeting and deliberates upon the future developmental priorities.

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Details of all the 'Niti Aayog' meetings:

-The first meeting of the Governing Council was held on February 8, 2015, at which the PM Modi laid down the key mandates of Niti Aayog such as fostering cooperative federalism and addressing national issues through active participation of the states.

-The second meeting held on July 15, 2015 reviewed the progress made by the three sub-groups of chief ministers and the two task forces.

-The third meeting which was held on April 23, 2017, Modi had pitched for conducting simultaneous elections of the Lok Sabha and the state assemblies and shifting to a January-December fiscal year.

-The fourth meeting of the council on June 17, 2018 deliberated upon measures taken to double farmers' income and the progress of the government's flagship schemes.

The agenda of the 5th Niti Aayog was tweeted on June 15th at the official twitter handle of the Aayog, where the main target was to double up Farmers’ Income by the year 2022.

The agenda will highlight the Government's initiatives towards achieving the target of Doubling Farmers’ Income by the year 2022.

Focus will be given to ways for achieving high productivity, reducing cost of cultivation and ensuring remunerative price on the produce. #FifthGCM pic.twitter.com/iy4j0drych

— NITI Aayog (@NITIAayog) June 15, 2019

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