Meet India’s New Railway and IT Minister

Meet India’s New Railway and IT Minister

Ashwini Vaishnaw (born 18 July 1970) is an Indian politician and former IAS officer who has been a member of the Rajya Sabha since 2019 and is currently serving as the 39th Minister of Railways, 55th Communications, and 2nd Electronics & Information Technology for the Government of India. His affiliation is with the Bharatiya Janata Party. Vaishnaw joined the Indian Administrative Service earlier in 1994 and has primarily worked in the Odisha cadre.

National Fellowship and Scholarship for Higher Education of ST Students

Education and work

Originally from the Jeewand Kallan village of Rani in the Pali District of Rajasthan, his family later relocated to Jodhpur.

Vaishnaw attended Mahesh School and St. Anthony’s Convent School in Jodhpur for his formal education. He earned a gold medal in electronic and communications engineering when he graduated from MBM Engineering College (JNVU) Jodhpur in 1991. After earning his M.Tech from IIT Kanpur, he joined the Indian Administrative Services in 1994 with an all-India rank of 27.Vaishnaw travelled to the US in 2008 to get his MBA at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

Vaishnaw returned to India after earning his MBA and joined GE Transportation as the company’s Managing Director. Later, as Vice President – Locomotives & Head of Urban Infrastructure Strategy, he joined Siemens. He has prior experience in both the public and commercial sectors, having served as deputy chairman of the Mormugao Port Trust.

He left the corporate sector in 2012 and began working for Gujarati automobile component manufacturers Three Tee Auto Logistics Private Limited and Vee Gee Auto Components Private Limited.

Years in civil services

Vaishnaw joined the Indian Administrative Service in the Odisha cadre in 1994, and since then, she has worked extensively throughout the state of Odisha, notably as the district collector of the districts of Balasore and Cuttack. He was able to gather information on the real timing and location of the super cyclone in 1999, and as a result, the government of Odisha was able to take safety measures for its residents. Up till 2003, he was employed by the state of Odisha. 

In 2003, he was named deputy secretary in the office of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. After a brief tenure in the PMO, where he helped establish the infrastructure projects’ public-private partnership framework, Vaishnav was chosen to serve as Vajpayee’s private secretary after the BJP-led NDA lost the 2004 election.

Vaishnaw enlisted in the Indian Administrative Service in the year 1994. He spent the following two years as the deputy chairman of the Mormugao Port Trust after being appointed in 2006.In order to complete his MBA at the Wharton Business School, he took out a student debt. He eventually left the civil service in 2010 to work in the private sector after realising it would take him years to pay back the student debt.

Political career

Vaishnaw took charge as Minister of Railways in New Delhi on 8 July 2021.

Vaishnaw presently serves as the Rajya Sabha representative for the state of Odisha in the Indian Parliament. Members of the Biju Janata Dal from Odisha helped him win the Rajya Sabha election without opposition. Vaishnaw was chosen to serve on the committees for science and technology, the environment, and forests as well as the committee on subordinate legislation and petitions.

In Parliament, Vaishnaw has argued that the current economic slowdown is cyclical in origin rather than structural, that it would likely bottom out by March, and that it will be followed by strong growth. Vaishnaw is adamant that investing money rather than using it for consumption is the best way to grow a nation.

On December 5 in Rajya Sabha, Vaishnaw also backed the Taxation Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2019. He thinks that by lowering, or better yet, rationalising, the tax system, the Indian sector will become more competitive and its capital base will grow. While arguing in favour, he added that the particular tax structure rationalisation will aid corporations in reducing debt and increasing reserves and surplus, which will build the groundwork for the economy’s structural growth.

In addition to these, he has spoken in Rajya Sabha about topics such as the Ship Recycling Bill and Women Protection to advance the public conversation on those topics.

Cabinet Minister

He was assigned control of the Ministries of Railways, Electronics and Information Technology, and Communications in July 2021 during the 22nd cabinet reshuffle.During his tenure, several Trinamool Congress MPs in the parliament threw papers at him in protest over the farmers law bill in August 2021.