Former Central Railway GM Lahoti appointed Railway Board Chairman

Takes over from Vinay Kumar Tripathi on Jan 1; he was named Member (Infrastructure) of the board a week ago

Anil Kumar Lahoti has been appointed as the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Railway Board. The former General Manager of Central Railway was appointed as Member (Infrastructure) of the board a week ago, and will be taking over the chairmanship from Vinay Kumar Tripathi on January 1.

Lahoti belongs to the 1984 batch of Indian Railway Service of Engineers (IRSE), and his appointment is a part of an overhaul at the top management of the railway board. Over the past months, no full-time appointments for the member positions were made in the railway board, as it was transitioning to a new integrated service - Indian Railway Management Service.

Lahoti was appointed as the general manager of Central Railway in July 2021, before which he worked in several key positions in both zonal railways and the railway board in Delhi. He reportedly also worked on developing the public private partnership model for station redevelopment, along with important infrastructural interventions leading to decongestion in stations in Delhi during his tenure with Northern and North Central Railways.

He will be taking over at a time when the railway board looks to turn things around for the national transporter. From earlier being infamous for delayed execution and poor capacity planning, the railways aims to execute more capital expenditure and bettering freight and passenger services in the run-up to the FY24 Budget.