List Of Railway Minister Of India From 1947 To 2023

Last Updated: 12 March 2023

Are you looking for the list of the Railway Minister of India?

You came to the right place, Before we get started let us have a quick intro about Indian Railways!

Indian Railways (IR) was founded on 6^th May 1836. It is a government-owned railway system under the ownership of the Ministry of Railways that operates India’s national railway system.

The Minister of Railways is the head of the Ministry of Railways of the Government of India. The Railway Minister is usually accorded a cabinet rank and is responsible for Indian Railways. Indian Railways is one of the largest employers in the world.

An important responsibility of the railway minister is to present the Railway Budget in Parliament which is the Annual Financial Statement of Indian Railways.

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Facts

The country’s first transport train, Red Hill Railway (built by Arthur Cotton to transport granite for road-building), ran from Red Hills to the Chintadripet bridge in Madras in 1837.

In 1845, the Godavari Dam Construction Railway was built by Cotton at Dowleswaram in Rajahmundry, to supply stone for the construction of a dam over the Godavari River.

India’s first passenger train, operated by the Great Indian Peninsula Railway and hauled by three steam locomotives (Sahib, Sindh, and Sultan), ran for 34 kilometers (21 mi) with 400 people in 14 carriages on 1,676 mm (5 ft 6 in) broad gauge track between Bori Bunder (Mumbai) and Thane on 16 April 1853.

Indian Railways manages the Fourth-largest railway network in the world by size, with a total route length of 126,511 km (78,610 mi) as of 31 December 2021. 45,881 km (28,509 mi) or 35% of all the broad-gauge routes are electrified with 25 kV 50 Hz AC electric traction as of 1 April 2021.

In the fiscal year ending March 2020, Indian Railways carried 808.6 crores (8.086 billion) passengers and transported 121.23 crores (1.2123 billion) tonnes of freight. It runs 1 lakh (100,000) passenger trains daily, on both long-distance and suburban routes, covering 7,325 stations across India.

The track Gauge size of the Indian Railway Track
- 1,676 mm (5 ft 6 in)
- 1,435 mm (4 ft 8¹⁄₂ in)
- 1,000 mm (3 ft 3³⁄₈ in)
- 762 mm (2 ft 6 in)

Mail or Express trains, the most common type of trains, run at an average speed of 50.6 km/h (31.4 mph). Suburban EMUs run at an average speed of 37.5 km/h (23.3 mph). Ordinary passenger trains (incl. mixed) run at an average speed of 33.5 km/h (20.8 mph). The maximum speed of passenger trains varies, with the Gatimaan Express running at a peak speed of 160 km/h (99 mph).

If the office of the Minister of Railways is vacant for any length of time, it automatically comes under the charge of the Prime Minister.

On 22 March 2020, Indian Railways announced a nationwide shutdown of passenger rail service to combat the COVID-19 pandemic in India.

Indian Railways is a major shareholder in 16 public sector undertakings (PSU) and other organizations that are related to rail transport in India.

RITES	CRIS	PRCL	MRVC
IRCON	KRCL	RVNL	BWEL
DFCCIL	RCIL	RLDA	BSCL
CONCOR	IRCTC	IRFC	BCL

Acronyms

*Year Mentioned Is The Year Of Incorporation/Inception*

1) RITES (1974): Rail India Technical and Economic Services Limited
2) CONCOR (1988): Container Corporation of India Limited
3) PRCL (2001): Pipavav Railway Corporation Limited
4) MRVC (1999): Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation
5) IRCON (1976): Ircon International Limited
6) KRCL (1990): Konkan Railway Corporation Limited
7) RVNL (2003): Rail Vikas Nigam Limited
8) BWEL (1978): Bharat Wagon and Engineering Limited
9) CRIS (1986): Centre for Railway Information Systems
10) RCIL (2000): Railtel Corporation of India Limited
11) RLDA (2005): Rail Land Development Authority
12) BSCL (1976): Burn Standard Company Limited
13) IRFC (1986): Indian Railway Finance Corporation Limited
14) IRCTC (2001): Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation
15) DFCCIL (2006): Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Limited
16) BCL (1976): Braithwaite & Co Limited

Railway Minister Of India

No.	Minister	Term In	Term Out	Total Term	Party
1	John Mathai	15 Aug 1947	22 Sep 1948	1 Year 38 Days	INC
2	N. Gopalaswami Ayyangar	22 Sep 1948	13 May 1952	3 Years 234 Days	INC
3	Lal Bahadur Shastri	13 May 1952	07 Dec 1956	4 Years 208 Days	INC
4	Jagjivan Ram	07 Dec 1956	10 Apr 1962	5 Years 124 Days	INC
5	Swaran Singh	10 Apr 1962	21 Sep 1963	1 Year 164 Days	INC
6	H. C. Dasappa	21 Sep 1963	08 Jun 1964	261 Days	INC
7	S. K. Patil	09 Jun 1964	12 Mar 1967	2 Years 276 Days	INC
8	C. M. Poonacha	13 Mar 1967	14 Feb 1969	1 Year 338 Days	INC
9	Ram Subhag Singh	14 Feb 1969	04 Nov 1969	263 Days	INC
10	Panampilly Govinda Menon	04 Nov 1969	18 Feb 1970	106 Days	INC
11	Gulzarilal Nanda	18 Feb 1970	17 Mar 1971	1 Year 27 Days	INC
12	K. Hanumanthaiah	18 Mar 1971	22 Jul 1972	1 Year 126 Days	INC
13	T. A. Pai^[1]	23 Jul 1972	04 Feb 1973	196 Days	INC
14	Lalit Narayan Mishra	05 Feb 1973	02 Jan 1975	1 Year 331 Days	INC
15	Kamalapati Tripathi^[1]	11 Feb 1975	23 Mar 1977	2 Years 40 Days	INC
16	Madhu Dandavate	26 Mar 1977	28 Jul 1979	2 Years 124 Days	JP
~	T. A. Pai^[2]	30 Jul 1979	14 Jan 1980	168 Days	JP (S)
~	Kamalapati Tripathi^[2]	14 Jan 1980	12 Nov 1980	303 Days	INC
17	Kedar Pandey	12 Nov 1980	14 Jan 1982	1 Year 63 Days	INC
18	Prakash Chandra Sethi	15 Jan 1982	02 Sep 1982	230 Days	INC
19	A. B. A. Ghani Khan Choudhury	02 Sep 1982	31 Dec 1984	2 Years 120 Days	INC
20	Bansi Lal	31 Dec 1984	24 Jun 1986	1 Year 175 Days	INC
21	Mohsina Kidwai	24 Jun 1986	21 Oct 1986	119 Days	INC
22	Madhavrao Scindia	22 Oct 1986	02 Dec 1989	3 Years 41 Days	INC
23	George Fernandes	02 Dec 1989	10 Nov 1990	343 Days	JD (NF)
24	Janeshwar Mishra	21 Nov 1990	21 Jun 1991	212 Days	SJP (R)
25	C. K. Jaffer Sharief	21 Jun 1991	17 Oct 1995	4 Years 118 Days	INC
26	Ram Vilas Paswan	01 Jun 1996	19 Mar 1998	1 Year 291 Days	JD (UF)
27	Nitish Kumar^[1]	19 Mar 1998	05 Aug 1999	1 Year 139 Days	SP
28	Ram Naik	06 Aug 1999	13 Oct 1999	69 Days	BJP
29	Mamata Banerjee^[1]	13 Oct 1999	15 Mar 2001	1 Year 153 Days	AITC
~	Nitish Kumar^[2]	20 Mar 2001	22 May 2004	3 Years 63 Days	JD (U)
30	Lalu Prasad Yadav	22 May 2004	22 May 2009	5 Years 0 Days	RJD
~	Mamata Banerjee^[2]	22 May 2009	19 May 2011	1 Year 362 Days	AITC
31	Dinesh Trivedi	12 Jul 2011	19 Mar 2012	251 Days	AITC
32	Mukul Roy	20 Mar 2012	22 Sep 2012	186 Days	AITC
33	C. P. Joshi^[1]	22 Sep 2012	28 Oct 2012	36 Days	INC
34	Pawan Kumar Bansal	29 Oct 2012	10 May 2013	194 Days	INC
~	C. P. Joshi^[2]	13 May 2013	14 June 2013	32 Days	INC
35	Mallikarjun Kharge	17 Jun 2013	26 May 2014	343 Days	INC
36	D. V. Sadananda Gowda	26 May 2014	09 Nov 2014	167 Days	BJP
37	Suresh Prabhu	09 Nov 2014	03 Sep 2017	2 Years 298 Days	BJP
38	Piyush Goyal	03 Sep 2017	07 Jul 2021	3 Years 307 Days	BJP
39	Ashwini Vaishnaw	07 Jul 2021	Incumbent	~	BJP

Acronyms
1) INC: Indian National Congress
2) JP: Janata Party
3) JP (S): Janata Party (Secular)
4) JD (NF): Janata Dal (National Front)
5) SJP (R): Samajwadi Janata Party (Rashtriya)
6) JD (UF): Janata Dal (United Front)
7) SP: Samata Party
8) BJP: Bharatiya Janata Party
9) AITC: All India Trinamool Congress
10) JD (U): Janata Dal (United)
11) RJD: Rashtriya Janata Dal

Ministers Of State In The Ministry of Railways

No.	Name	Term In	Term Out	Total Term	Party
1	Manoj Sinha	26 May 2014	30 May 2019	5 Years 4 Days	BJP
2	Rajen Gohain	5 July 2016	30 May 2019	4 Years 329 Days	BJP
3	Suresh Angadi	30 May 2019	23 Sep 2020	1 Year 116 Days	BJP
4	Raosaheb Danve	7 July 2021	Incumbent	~	BJP
5	Darshana Jardosh	7 July 2021	Incumbent	~	BJP