NEW DELHI: NITI Aayog has decided to pay up to 36% higher salaries to young professionals to draw the best talent, along with capping the age limit at 32 years in line with the government’s efforts to bring in younger people to contribute to policymaking at the think tank that replaced the erstwhile Planning Commission as per the revised guidelines issued recently, the Aayog has fixed the salary of young professionals, or YPs as they are commonly called at the institution, at Rs 40,000-70,000 per month including the transport allowance, with an annual increase of Rs 5,000.This is 27-36% more than Rs 31,500-51,500 that the YPs were entitled to under the erstwhile commission. Besides, the revised guidelines have reduced the upper age limit by eight years from the earlier cap of 40 years. “NITI Aayog seeks to engage 20 YPs with an aptitude for public policy and development under the Young Professionals Programme ,” the Aayog has said in an advertisement inviting applications for the programme.The revision comes over a year after the commission had revised the guidelines for YPs in May 2014, resulting in a 20% increase in salaries over 2009, when the concept was first introduced by the commission’s then deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia . The YPs under the commission were also entitled to a reimbursement of second AC train fare as transport allowance and a daily allowance of Rs 750 if they travelled out of the city for project related work. senior official at the Aayog said that the number of YPs is likely to go up eventually once the entire work allocation gets clearer. “Though the current advertisement is for hiring 20 YPs only we may see the number go up as the work flows in,” he said.ET had reported last month that the Narendra Modi-led NDA government was planning to increase the salaries and overall headcount of YPs at the Aayog as part of its restructuring exercise.The earlier guidelines had pegged the maximum number of YPs at the Aayog at 60 at anygiven time in a year while the entire hiring process was centralised and recruitment restricted to twice a year, depending on the requirement of various divisions.Since the Modi government took charge within a week of the revised guidelines being issued and replaced the commission with the Aayog only on January 1 this year, the institution is about to hire the first batch of YPs under the current government.