Piyush Goyal

Piyush Vedprakash Goyal (born 13 June 1964) is an Indian politician and the current minister of Railways and Commerce in the Government of India. He was elevated to the Cabinet Minister position on 3 September 2017. He is currently a Member of Parliament for Rajya Sabha from the state of Maharashtra, and the Deputy Leader of Rajya Sabha. He was earlier the National Treasurer of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He headed the BJP's Information Communication Campaign Committee and oversaw the publicity and advertising campaign of the party including the social media outreach for the Indian General Elections 2014. Goyal is the 2018 Carnot Prize Recipient for distinguished contributions to energy policy. Piyush Goyal has been allocated the cabinet ministry for Narendra Modi led NDA government in May 2019. He is currently taking charge as Minister of Railways and Minister of Commerce and Industry.

Piyush Goyal

MP
Minister of Railways
Assumed office
4 September 2017
Prime MinisterNarendra Modi
Preceded bySuresh Prabhu
Deputy leader of the house,Rajya Sabha
Assumed office
11 June 2019
Minister of Commerce and Industry
Assumed office
3 September 2017
Prime MinisterNarendra Modi
Preceded bySuresh Prabhu
Minister of Coal
In office
26 May 2014 – 30 May 2019
Prime MinisterNarendra Modi
Preceded bySriprakash Jaiswal
Succeeded byPralhad Joshi
Minister of Finance & Corporate Affairs
In office
23 January 2019 – 15 February 2019
Prime MinisterNarendra Modi
Preceded byArun Jaitley
Succeeded byArun Jaitley
In office
14 May 2018 – 23 August 2018
Prime MinisterNarendra Modi
Preceded byArun Jaitley
Succeeded byArun Jaitley
Minister of Power (Independent Charge)
In office
26 May 2014 – 3 September 2017
Prime MinisterNarendra Modi
Preceded byJyotiraditya Scindia
Succeeded byR. K. Singh
Minister of New and Renewable Energy (Independent Charge)
In office
26 May 2014 – 3 September 2017
Prime MinisterNarendra Modi
Preceded byFarooq Abdullah
Succeeded byR. K. Singh
Minister of Mines (Independent Charge)
In office
5 July 2016 – 3 September 2017
Prime MinisterNarendra Modi
Preceded byNarendra Singh Tomar
Succeeded byNarendra Singh Tomar
Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha
Assumed office
5 July 2010
ConstituencyMaharasthra
Personal details
Born
Piyush Ved Prakash Goyal

(1964-06-13) 13 June 1964
Bombay, Maharashtra, India (present-day Mumbai, Maharashtra)
Political partyBharatiya Janata Party
Spouse(s)Seema Goyal
Children1 son, 1 daughter
MotherChandrakanta Goyal
FatherVed Prakash Goyal
Alma materHR College (BCom, LLB)

Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (CA)

ProfessionChartered accountant
Websitewww.piyushgoyal.in

Early life

Goyal was born in Bombay to Chandrakanta Goyal and Ved Prakash Goyal. His mother was a three-time Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) from Maharashtra and his father served as the Union Minister for shipping in the Third Vajpayee ministry from 2001 to 2003. His father also served as the National Treasurer of the BJP for over two decades[1][2]

Piyush Goyal has had a strong academic record - all-India second rank holder in CA Final Chartered Accountant and second rank holder in Law in Mumbai University.[2] He has participated in Leadership Programs at Yale University (2011), Oxford University (2012) and Princeton University (2013). He did his schooling from Don Bosco High School, Matunga.[3]

He is married to Seema Goyal, an active social worker, and has two children – Dhruv and Radhika, who have both graduated from Harvard University, USA.

Career

Goyal started his career as an investment banker and served on the board of India's largest commercial banks, the State Bank of India 2001-2004 and Bank of Baroda 2002-2004 as Government nominee.[4][2]

Piyush was a member of the Standing Committee on Finance and the Consultative Committee for the Ministry of Defence. An active member of the Managing Committee of Indian Merchants Chamber, he is also involved with NGOs in diverse fields such as tribal education and welfare of the physically challenged (Jaipur Foot).[5]

During his 35-year-long political career, he has served on the National Executive and held several important positions in the BJP including the national treasurer.[2] He was also nominated by the Government of India to the Task Force for Interlinking of Rivers. He was the Dy. Campaign In-charge for the Parliament elections in 1991 and played a key role at the central level in all elections since 2004.

He was elected as the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate from Maharashtra for the Rajya Sabha in 2010.

Minister of Power
Goyal taking charge as the Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Power, in New Delhi on May 27, 2014

Goyal became the Minister of State for Power, Coal, New and Renewable Energy in the Modi government in 2014 and undertook multiple initiatives in his term. He accelerated the mission to provide 24X7 reliable electricity to all households and pushed towards the adoption of clean energy. He introduced the Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana (UDAY) to revive debt-ridden power distribution companies and Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY) to improve India's energy access. He successfully auctioned the coal blocks after the much talked about Coal scam of the previous government. He initiated and completed the government program to electrify all the 18,000 remaining unelectrified villages of the country. He was awarded the 2018 Carnot Prize for distinguished contributions to energy policy and work in village electrification by the University of Pennsylvania’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy. He also worked for energy efficiency in the country through the Unnat Jyoti by Affordable Lighting for All (UJALA) scheme and reduced the prices of LED bulbs to ₹38 (53¢ US) per piece from ₹310 (US$4.30) in 2014.[2] He revised the Government's target of 20 GW of solar power by 2022 to five times (i.e. 100 GW).[6]

On 5 July 2016, during the second cabinet reshuffle of the Modi ministry, he was included in the cabinet and took over as the Minister of State for Mines (Independent charge) from Narendra Singh Tomar.[7]

Minister of Railways
Goyal taking charge as the Union Minister for Railways, (Suresh Prabhu on left), in New Delhi on September 04, 2017

He became the Minister of Railways on 3 September 2017 taking charge from Suresh Prabhu.[8] On 27 February 2019, Piyush Goyal announced a Railway Zone for Andhra Pradesh named South Coast Railway with Waltair Division in Andhra Pradesh along with Guntur, Guntakal and Vijayawada Divisions with the headquarters of the zone being in Visakhapatnam, according to the AP Reorganisation Act 2014.

From May through August 2018, he was temporarily given additional charge of Ministry of Finance during Arun Jaitley's absence for medical treatment. Goyal presented the 2019 Interim-Union budget of India in the Lok Sabha on 1 February 2019.[4]

Minister of Commerce & Industry

In May 2019, he continued at the Ministry of Railways and got the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.[9]

In June 2019, he was appointed as the Deputy Leader of the House in Rajya Sabha.[10]

In Media

Piyush Goyal was trolled[11] for his comments about India's GDP numbers and economic slowdown, when he said "Don’t get into those maths. Those maths have never helped Einstein discover gravity".[12] Goyal later called it a mistake.[13]

In 2017, Goyal tweeted a photo of a Russian street as an example of Indian street-lighting programme,[14] he later deleted the tweet.[15]

References
  1. "Minister of State (Independent Charge): Piyush Goyal", NDTV
  2. "Piyush Goyal: BJP's man for all seasons", Live Mint, 1 February 2019
  3. Phadke, Manasi (1 February 2019). "In Mumbai's Sion, old neighbours recall Piyush Goyal the 'gentle & studious boy'". ThePrint.
  4. "Arun Jaitley or Piyush Goyal: Who will be the next finance minister if Modi wins?", India Today, 21 May 2019
  5. "Detailed Profile - Shri Piyush Goyal - Members of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) - Who's Who - Government: National Portal of India".
  6. "Round two of solar parks bidding soon", The Hindu, 7 June 2016
  7. "No more a people ministry for Birender Singh, now the steel minister". Business Standard. 6 July 2016. Retrieved 8 July 2016.
  8. "Modi Cabinet reshuffle: Full list of new council of ministers", The Times of India, 3 September 2017
  9. "PM Modi allocates portfolios. Full list of new ministers", Live Mint, 31 May 2019
  10. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/union-minister-piyush-goyal-appointed-deputy-leader-of-house-in-rajya-sabha/article27847747.ece
  11. "Piyush Goyal trolled for Einstein comment on 'discovering gravity' - Times of India". The Times of India. 12 September 2019. Retrieved 5 May 2020.
  12. Sandhya Ramesh (12 September 2019). "Piyush Goyal, it was Isaac Newton & not Albert Einstein who discovered gravity". ThePrint. Retrieved 8 May 2020.
  13. Mahale, Ajeet (13 September 2019). "Piyush Goyal says he 'made a mistake' on Einstein and gravity". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 5 May 2020.
  14. "The growing tide of fake news in India". www.aljazeera.com. Retrieved 5 May 2020.
  15. "Minister Piyush Goyal passes off photo of Russian street as Indian, deletes tweet later". India Today. 21 August 2017. Retrieved 8 May 2020.
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