| Post: | Minister of Railways |
| Flag: | Flag of India.svg |
| Flagcaption: | Flag of India |
| Insignia: | Ministry of Railways India.svg |
| Insigniacaption: | Emblem of India |
| Incumbent: | Ashwini Vaishnaw |
| Department: | Ministry of Railways |
| Member Of: | Cabinet of India |
| Reports To: | President of India Prime Minister of India Parliament of India |
| Appointer: | President of India |
| Appointer Qualified: | on the recommendation of the Prime Minister of India |
| First: | John Matthai |
| Deputy: | Minister of State for Railways |
The Minister of Railways (Hindi:) is the head of the Ministry of Railways and a member of the union council of ministers of India. The position of the Minister of Railways is usually held by a minister of cabinet rank and is often assisted by one or two junior Ministers of State.[1]
John Mathai was the first Minister of Railways.[2] Lal Bahadur Shastri who served as the Minister of Railways and Transport from 1952 until 1956 became the second Prime Minister of India in 1964.[3] Four prime ministers, namely Rajiv Gandhi, P. V. Narasimha Rao, Atal Bihari Vajpayee (twice) and Manmohan Singh (twice) have briefly held the portfolio of the Minister of Railways during their premiership.[4] Mohsina Kidwai was the first female to hold the charge of the ministry (as Minister of Surface Transport) while Mamata Banerjee is the first female to have served as the Minister of Railways.[4] Madhavrao Scindia and Ram Naik are the only people to have served as Ministers of State for Railways with an Independent charge. Lalit Narayan Mishra is the only cabinet minister to die in office after being assassinated in a bomb blast in 1975,[5] while Suresh Angadi is the only minister of state to die in office.[6]
The current Minister of Railways is Ashwini Vaishnaw of the Bharatiya Janata Party who has been in office since 7 July 2021 while V. Somanna and Ravneet Singh are the ministers of state for railways.[7]
The ministry of railways was part of the Ministry of Transport after the independence in 1947 and John Mathai served as its first minister from 1947 till 1948.[8] [2] On 22 September 1948, N. Gopalaswamy Ayyangar was appointed as the minister of the newly renamed Ministry of Railways and Transport.[9] On 17 April 1957, Jagjivan Ram became the first to head the standalone Minister of Railways.[4]
The Ministry of Railways was merged with the Ministry of Shipping and Transport and the Department of Civil Aviation on 25 September 1985 to form the Ministry of Transport and Bansi Lal, who served as the Railways Minister prior to the merger became the first holder of the new office.[10] However, on 22 October 1986, the Ministry of Railways was again separated into an independent ministry and has been the same since then.[4] [11]
See main article: Railway budget of India. The first railway budget was presented in 1924.[12] Since then, Railway budget was presented as a standalone budget every year before the union budget by the Railway Minister till 2016.[13] The last Railway Budget was presented on 25 February 2016 and on 21 September 2016, Government of India approved merger of the rail and general budgets from 2017.[14] The railway budget was estimated to be for the financial year 2023–24.[15]
| No. | Portrait | Minister | Term of office | Political party | Ministry | Prime Minister | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| From | To | Period | |||||||
| Deputy Minister for Transport and Railways | |||||||||
| 1 | B. V. Keskar | 1952 | 1952 | Indian National Congress | Nehru I | Jawaharlal Nehru | |||
| 2 | O. V. Alagesan | 1952 | 1957 | Nehru II | |||||
| 3 | Shah Nawaz Khan | 1956 | 1957 | ||||||
| Deputy Minister for Railways | |||||||||
| (3) | Shah Nawaz Khan | 1957 | 1962 | Indian National Congress | Nehru III | Jawaharlal Nehru | |||
| 4 | S. V. Ramaswamy | 1958 | |||||||
| (3) | Shah Nawaz Khan | 1962 | 1964 | Nehru III | |||||
| (4) | S. V. Ramaswamy | ||||||||
| (3) | Shah Nawaz Khan | 1964 | 1964 | Nanda I | Gulzarilal Nanda (acting) | ||||
| (4) | S. V. Ramaswamy | ||||||||
| 5 | Sham Nath | 1964 | 1966 | Shastri | Lal Bahadur Shastri | ||||
1966 | 1966 | Nanda II | Gulzarilal Nanda (acting) | ||||||
1966 | 1967 | Indira I | Indira Gandhi | ||||||
| 6 | S. C. Jamir | 1967 | 1967 | Indira II | |||||
| 7 | Rohanlal Chaturvedi | 1967 | 1971 | ||||||
| 8 | Mohammad Yunus Saleem | 1970 | 1971 | Indian National Congress (R) | |||||
| 9 | Mohammad Shafi Qureshi | 1971 | 1974 | Indira III | |||||
| 10 | Buta Singh | 1974 | 1976 | ||||||
| Deputy Minister for Railways | |||||||||
| 11 | Mahaveer Prasad | 1988 | 1989 | Indian National Congress (I) | Rajiv II | Rajiv Gandhi | |||
| 12 | Ajay Singh | 1990 | 1990 | Janata Dal | Vishwanath | V. P. Singh | |||