India scraps Soviet-style Planning Commission in growth bid

India has scrapped its 65-year-old Planning Commission, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi has accused of stifling growth with Soviet-style bureaucracy.

The National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) has now been formed which Modi said would do more to involve the regions.

Supporters said it would act more like a think tank or forum, in contrast to the Commission which imposed five-year-plans and allocated resources to hit economic targets.

Despite being widely blamed for the slow growth that has plagued India for decades, the Commission managed to survive the market reforms of the early 1990s, riling Modi with its interventions when he was premier of the fast-growing state of Gujarat.

In a series of messages to his 9.1 million Twitter followers, Modi said the body would replace the old one-size-fits-all approach with a "pro-people, pro-active & participative development agenda".

Modi, elected by a landslide last year on a promise to revive flagging growth and create jobs, had vowed to do away with the Planning Commission that was set up in 1950 by India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.