Piyush Goyal Keeps Railways, Also Gets Commerce
Piyush Goyal also gets commerce and industry along with railways portfolio.
Piyush Goyal has retained his railways ministry in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s second term.
The Bharatiya Janata Party leader, who took oath as minister on May 30, along with Modi and other cabinet colleagues, has also been handed the charge of the Commerce and Industry Ministry, according to a communique by the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
A chartered accountant and lawyer, Mumbai-born Piyush Goyal dabbled in investment banking before following in his father’s footsteps and joining the Bharatiya Janata Party. Goyal’s father served as the BJP’s National Treasurer for over two decades, as also a minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government (1999-2004).
Goyal, 54, has been associated with the BJP since 1984 and has played several important roles in the party, from national treasurer to head of the Information Communication Campaign Committee in 2014. A member of the Rajya Sabha, he was appointed a union minister in Narendra Modi’s first government in 2014 and has handled the critical portfolios of power, coal, new and renewable energy, mines and more recently railways. Earlier this year, he was given interim charge of the Finance Ministry for a few months, due to the ill health and absence of Arun Jaitley. He had first been given this interim charge between May and August 2018. Goyal delivered the last union budget speech of the outgoing Modi government.
As minister, the projects he has steered include a half-successful effort to reform India’s power sector through the UDAY scheme. But states have failed in achieving the targets laid out in the scheme, exacerbating the crisis in the power sector.
Goyal has found more success in the propagation of LED bulbs via the UJALA scheme. His work as railways minister is tougher to assess since the discontinuation of the presentation of a separate railway budget in the past two years.
Before he made minister, Goyal has also served on the boards of two large public sector banks, State Bank of India and Bank of Baroda. He was a government nominee during the Vajpayee government’s tenure.