Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold consultations with Chief Ministers on Sunday on the structure and role of the new body that will replace the Planning Commission.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who has been at loggereheads with the Bharatiya Janata Party over Burdwan blasts and Saradha scam investigations, will be skipping the meet. The state's Finance Minister Amit Mitra will be attending on her behalf.

Even Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah will not attend it and he has cited Assembly elections as the reason for it.

As far as the name is concerned, the view within the government is that it could be called KARMA which stands for Knowledge And Reforms Management Agency and will be picking up best practices of various countries abroad.

Sources said the new panel is likely to be a small core team of knowledge experts and monitoring and evaluation of the body will require the Prime Minister's supervision. The new body is likely to play the role of a think tank and will be providing consultancy services to both Centre and the state, sources added.

The Prime Minister in his Independence Day speech had announced that the Commission would be abolished and replaced with a more relevant institution. Since then the Commission has held several meetings with experts to discuss the new structure of the proposed institution.

Country's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had set up the Planning Commission to steer the nation's economic destiny at that time.

Set up by a Cabinet Resolution, the Commission has enjoyed power and prestige with Prime Minister as its Chairman. Its most important functions have been fixing targets for sectoral growth and allocate resources.

The Deputy Chairman of the Commission has often been a political stalwart holding the rank of a Cabinet Minister.

Gulzarilal Nanda, VT Krishnamachari, C Subramaniam, PN Haksar, Manmohan Singh, Pranab Mukherjee, KC Pant, Jaswant Singh, Madhu Dandavate, Mohan Dharia and RK Hegde had been deputy chaiman at different points of time.

Montek Singh Ahluwalia was the last deputy chairman.

Source: IBN