Amitabh Kant, former chief executive of NITI Aayog, will be the new Sherpa of the G-20 Summit, replacing Union Minister Piyush Goyal, people in the know of the matter said on Thursday.
G20 is an international grouping that brings the European Union as well as 19 of the world's major economies together. India will hold the Presidency of the G20 from December 1, 2022, to November 30, 2023, culminating with the G20 Summit in India in 2023.
The Sherpa would be required to devote a lot of time to numerous meetings that would be held across the country, sources said.
Kant, who took over as the NITI Aayog CEO in 2016,
stepped down last month. He was succeeded by Parameswaran Iyer, a 1980 batch retired IAS officer. In his six-year tenure, Kant drove several key policy initiatives aimed at promoting India's industries, manufacturing sector and startup ecosystem, among others.
Meanwhile, sources said that Goyal has been tasked with other pressing duties such as the Leader of the Rajya Sabha. "This combined with intensive workload in Ministries such as Commerce & Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and Textiles, would limit his involvement at this critical time," sources said.
As Sherpa, Goyal's foreign travel, too, gets curtailed during the Parliament sessions, which makes the work difficult to sustain, the sources added. The initiatives led by Goyal such as FTA negotiations with the UK and EU would require all his attention and his guidance would be needed at the WTO as well, sources said.
The body will be responsible for the implementation of overall policy decisions and arrangements needed for steering India’s forthcoming G20 Presidency.
