Piyush Goyal

Piyush Goyal
Piyush Goyal
Minister of Railways
Incumbent
Assumed office 3 September 2017
Prime Minister	Narendra Modi
Preceded by	Suresh Prabhu
Minister of Commerce and Industry
Incumbent
Assumed office 30 May 2019
Prime Minister	Narendra Modi
Preceded by	Suresh Prabhu
Minister of Coal
In office 26 May 2014 – 30 May 2019
Prime Minister	Narendra Modi
Preceded by	Sriprakash Jaiswal
Succeeded by	Pralhad Joshi
Minister of Finance
In office 23 January 2019 – 15 February 2019
Prime Minister	Narendra Modi
Preceded by	Arun Jaitley
Succeeded by	Arun Jaitley
Minister of Corporate Affairs
In office 14 May 2018 – 23 August 2018
Prime Minister	Narendra Modi
Preceded by	Arun Jaitley
Succeeded by	Arun Jaitley
Minister of Power (Independent Charge)
In office 26 May 2014 – 3 September 2017
Prime Minister	Narendra Modi
Preceded by	Jyotiraditya Scindia
Succeeded by	R. K. Singh
Minister of New and Renewable Energy (Independent Charge)
In office 26 May 2014 – 3 September 2017
Prime Minister	Narendra Modi
Preceded by	Farooq Abdullah
Succeeded by	R. K. Singh
Minister of Mines (Independent Charge)
In office 5 July 2016 – 3 September 2017
Prime Minister	Narendra Modi
Preceded by	Narendra Singh Tomar
Succeeded by	Narendra Singh Tomar
Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha
Incumbent
Assumed office 5 July 2010
Constituency	Maharasthra
Personal details
Born	Piyush Ved Prakash Goyal (1964-06-13) 13 June 1964 Bombay, Maharashtra, India (present-day Mumbai, Maharashtra)
Political party	Bharatiya Janata Party
Spouse	Seema Goyal
Children	1 son, 1 daughter
Parents	Ved Prakash Goyal (father) Chandrakanta Goyal (mother)
Alma mater	Government Law College, Mumbai University of Mumbai Institute of Chartered Accountants of India,Delhi
Website	www.piyushgoyal.in

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 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.

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

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. 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. He was brilliant student in school time.

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.

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).

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. 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.

Union minister

Goyal became the Minister of Finance 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 (46¢ US) per piece from ₹310 (US$3.70) in 2014. He revised the Government's target of 20 GW of solar power by 2022 to five times (i.e. 100 GW).

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.

He became the Minister of Railways on 3 September 2017 taking charge from Suresh Prabhu. 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.

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

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

Ethics & controversies

At the Board of Trade meeting, Mr Goyal stated that 'Those maths have never helped Einstein discover gravity' implying Einstein discovered gravity. He made the statement while aspiring the Indian industries to achieve one trillion dollar export target, suggesting how maths is unimportant for GDP forecasting. He also said 'Don't get into the calculations that you see on the television..O if you look at 5 trillion dollar economy then country will have to grow with 12%, today it is growing with 6-7% , don't get into those maths' suggesting not to pay attention to the expert opinions. When journalists reported his recorded comments regarding Einstein and gravity, he clarified by saying 'There is a mischievous and baseless narrative sort be presented about my closing comments at the board of trade meeting...... ' . He further said that the comments he made had a sort of context which was not shown by the media. In another interview, he said that Prof. Abhijit Banerjee is a left-leaning economist whose ideas were rejected by the Indian public. Mr Goyal was implying that the 'NYAY scheme' which was part of the opposition Congress party's election manifesto, was Prof. Abhijit Banerjee's idea and was rejected by the Indian public in the elections. Prof. Abhijit Banerjee' denied that NYAY was his idea but he helped Congress party in where to look for the numbers to develop such a scheme.

External links

• Official Website
• Biography