Niti Aayog has more young women professionals than men

When it comes to young professionals working at Niti Aayog, women rule the roost as they make up around over three-fourth of the 46 such contractual employees, according to an official data. These young professionals are aged below 32 years and hired on contractual basis to assist the think tank in policy formulations. Out of the 46 young professionals at Niti Aayog, there were 33 women as on April 19, 2018, as per the data provided by the think tank to a RTI query filed by PTI.

The think tank, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was constituted in January 2015, replacing the Planning Commission. A top Niti Aayog official said that young professionals and consultants are not on regular employment and hence reservations are not applicable for such recruitment. Initially, young professionals are hired for two years and that can be extended up to five years -- for one year at a time on the recommendation of the Performance Appraisal Board.

Among the 46 young professionals, nine received their Master's degree from foreign universities like the London School of Economics, Colorado School of Mines, University of Oxford, Johnson and Wales University (US) and the University of Sussex (UK), according to the information provided in the RTI reply. The think tank has hired four professionals who have either BTech or MTech from IITs, and there are eight MBA degree holders.

Niti Aayog has been the first government organisation to scale up its lateral entry recruitment at the junior levels.