The National Institution for Transforming India, popularly known as NITI Aayog, is the premier policy think tank of the Government of India, established to provide strategic and technical advice for achieving sustainable development and cooperative federalism. It represents a shift in India’s approach to planning and governance, moving away from centralized, top-down planning towards a more flexible, participatory, and outcome-oriented framework that aligns national priorities with state-level needs, particularly in areas such as rural development, infrastructure, health, education, and livelihoods. NITI Aayog was constituted on 1 January 2015, replacing the Planning Commission that had functioned since 1950. The Planning Commission was created in the early years of independent India to guide economic development through centralized Five-Year Plans, reflecting a state-led model of growth suited to a resource-scarce, newly independent nation. Over time, however, the limitations of this model became evident. India’s economy diversified, states developed varied capacities and priorities, and rigid centralized planning began to constrain innovation and responsiveness. There was increasing criticism that the Planning Commission fostered a one-size-fits-all approach, lacked accountability, and did not adequately involve states in decision-making. In response to these challenges and in line with the vision of cooperative federalism, the government introduced NITI Aayog as a new institutional mechanism better suited to a dynamic, market-oriented, and decentralized economy. The primary purpose of NITI Aayog is to act as a