Amitabh Kant will step down, and Parameswaran Iyer will take over as CEO of Niti Aayog

Amitabh Kant, the CEO of Niti Aayog, will step down from his position at the end of June after serving in that capacity for six years. He will be succeeded by Parameswaran Iyer, the man responsible for the government’s Swachh Bharat Mission and a former secretary of the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation. According to a notification from the Department of Personnel and Training, Iyer’s initial term would be for two years (DoPT).

In June 2021, Kant’s term was extended by one year. Kant has served as the CEO of Niti Aayog since 2016. He is a retired IAS officer from the Kerala cadre from the 1980 batch. During his tenure in the company, Kant rose to the top of the government on topics of industrial strategy.

His successor, Iyer, left the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in 2009 after serving for 17 years. In 2016, he returned to the position as secretary of the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation (D0DWS). He was the driving force behind the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, an initiative to end open defecation in rural India by building nearly 90 million toilets. He left his position as secretary of the DoDWS in July 2020, and he afterwards began working for the World Bank in the US.

Iyer, 63, previously worked for the UN between April 1998 and February 2006 as a Senior Rural Water Sanitation Specialist. Iyer has also collaborated on educational projects with the Mayawati administration in Uttar Pradesh.