Minister of Road Transport and Highways explained

The Minister of Road Transport and Highways is the head of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and a senior member of the union council of ministers of the Government of India. The portfolio is usually held by a minister with cabinet rank who is a senior member of the council of ministers and is often assisted by one or two junior ministers or the Ministers of State.

The current minister is Nitin Gadkari who has been serving in office since 27 May 2014 and is currently assisted by V. K. Singh as the Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways.

Two past presidents- Neelam Sanjiva Reddy and Pranab Mukherjee served as ministers in the ministry. Reddy was Cabinet Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation from 1966 till 1967 while Mukherjee was Deputy Minister of Shipping and Transport in 1974. One past prime minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri served as Minister of Transport and Railways from 1952 till 1956 and as Minister of Transport and Communications from 1957 till 1958. Five prime ministers - Morarji Desai (in 1977), Rajiv Gandhi (in 1986), Chandra Shekhar (in 1991), Atal Bihari Vajpayee (in 1996 and in 2000) and Manmohan Singh (in 2013) held the charge of the ministry during their premierships. The current minister Nitin Gadkari holds the record of being the longest-serving minister in the ministry with a tenure of more than nine years.

Titles of office

The ministry has been subjected to various changes since its inception. The ministers have been known by the following titles from time to time:

• 19471948: Minister of Transport
• 19481957: Minister of Transport and Railways
• 19571963: Minister of Transport and Communications
• 19631966: Minister of Transport
• 19661967: Minister of Transport and Aviation
• 19671985: Minister of Shipping and Transport
• 19851986: Minister of Transport
• 19862000: Minister of Surface Transport
• 20002004: Minister of Road Transport and Highways
• 20042009: Minister of Shipping, Road Transport and Highways
• 2009present: Minister of Road Transport and Highways

History of office

The "Ministry of Transport" was created upon the nation's independence on 15 August 1947 with John Mathai being appointed as the inaugural minister. On 22 September 1948, the ministry was renamed as "Ministry of Transport and Railways" and N. Gopalaswamy Ayyangar was appointed as the minister on the same day. With the formation of the Third Nehru ministry on 17 April 1957, the Ministry of Transport and Railways was bifurcated into the "Ministry of Railways" and the "Ministry of Transport and Communications" with the merger of the Ministry of Communications with the transport ministry.

On 1 September 1963, the Department of Communications was separated from the ministry and the ministry was renamed as "Ministry of Transport". Upon Indira Gandhi's appointment as the Prime Minister on 24 January 1966,^[1] the Ministry of Civil Aviation was merged with the Ministry of Transport to form the "Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation" which was short-lived and the Department of Civil Aviation was separated and merged to form the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation. Meanwhile, the Department of Transport was renamed as "Ministry of Shipping and Transport".

On 25 September 1985, the Ministry of Railways, the Ministry of Shipping and Transport and the Department of Civil Aviation were merged to form the "Ministry of Transport" with constituent departments of Railways, Surface Transport and Civil Aviation. Bansi Lal was appointed as the minister of the bulk-ministry and was assisted by three ministers of state, Madhavrao Scindia for Railways, Rajesh Pilot for Surface Transport and Jagdish Tytler for Civil Aviation. Lal resigned on 4 June 1986 and was succeeded by Mohsina Kidwai. In a reshuffle of the union cabinet on 22 October 1986, the Ministry of Transport was bifurcated into the Ministry of Railways, the Ministry of Surface Transport and the Ministry of Civil Aviation. Three ministers of state of the constituent departments of the erstwhile transport ministry - Madhavrao Scindia, Rajesh Pilot, and Jagdish Tytler were appointed as the ministers of state with independent charge of the newly-created three independent ministries.

The Ministry of Surface Transport existed from 1986 until 7 November 2000 when the ministry bifurcated into two separate ministries, viz. the "Ministry of Road Transport and Highways" and the "Ministry of Shipping". On 2 October 2004, the two ministries were re-united as the "Ministry of Shipping, Road Transport and Highways" and were re-bifurcated in May 2009 and has since then existed as two independent ministries. Nitin Gadkari served as the minister of both ministries between 2014 till 2019 and since 2019 has been heading the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. The Ministry of Shipping was renamed as the "Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways" on 10 November 2020.^[2]

Cabinet Ministers

• Note: MoS, I/C Minister of State (Independent Charge)

	Portrait		Minister	Term of office			Political party	Ministry	Prime Minister
				From	To	Period
Minister of Transport
1			John Mathai	15 August 1947	22 September 1948		Indian National Congress	Nehru I		Jawaharlal Nehru
Minister of Transport and Railways
2			N. Gopalaswamy Ayyangar	22 September 1948	13 May 1952		Indian National Congress	Nehru I		Jawaharlal Nehru
3			Lal Bahadur Shastri	13 May 1952	7 December 1956			Nehru II
4			Jagjivan Ram	7 December 1956	17 April 1957
Minister of Transport and Communications
(3)			Lal Bahadur Shastri	17 April 1957	28 March 1958		Indian National Congress	Nehru III		Jawaharlal Nehru
5			S. K. Patil	29 March 1958	24 August 1959
			Jawaharlal Nehru (Prime Minister)	24 August 1959	2 September 1959
6			P. Subbarayan	2 September 1959	10 April 1962
(4)			Jagjivan Ram	10 April 1962	31 August 1963			Nehru IV
			Raj Bahadur	10 April 1962	1 September 1963
Minister of Transport
7			Raj Bahadur (MoS until 1 September 1963)	1 September 1963	10 April 1964		Indian National Congress	Nehru IV		Jawaharlal Nehru
				27 May 1964	9 June 1964			Nanda I		Gulzarilal Nanda
				9 June 1964	11 January 1966			Shastri		Lal Bahadur Shastri
				11 January 1966	24 January 1966			Nanda II		Gulzarilal Nanda
Minister of Transport and Aviation
8			Neelam Sanjiva Reddy	24 January 1966	13 March 1967		Indian National Congress	Indira I		Indira Gandhi
Minister of Shipping and Transport
9			V. K. R. V. Rao	13 March 1967	14 February 1969		Indian National Congress	Indira II		Indira Gandhi
10			Kotha Raghuramaiah	14 February 1969	18 March 1971		Indian National Congress (R)
11			Raj Bahadur	18 March 1971	8 November 1973			Indira III
12			Kamalapati Tripathi	8 November 1973	10 February 1975
13			Uma Shankar Dikshit	10 February 1975	1 December 1975
14			Gurdial Singh Dhillon	1 December 1975	24 March 1977
			Morarji Desai (Prime Minister)	24 March 1977	7 June 1977		Janata Party	Desai		Morarji Desai
(4)			Jagjivan Ram (Deputy Prime Minister)	7 June 1977	17 June 1977
			Morarji Desai (Prime Minister)	17 June 1977	14 August 1977
15			Chand Ram (MoS, I/C)	14 August 1977	28 July 1979
16			Janeshwar Mishra (MoS, I/C)	30 July 1979	14 January 1980		Janata Party (Secular)	Charan		Charan Singh
17			Anant Sharma	14 January 1980	19 October 1980		Indian National Congress (I)	Indira IV		Indira Gandhi
18			Veerendra Patil	19 October 1980	2 September 1982
19			C. M. Stephen	2 September 1982	2 February 1983
20			Kotla Vijaya Bhaskara Reddy	2 February 1983	7 September 1984
(18)			Veerendra Patil	7 September 1984	31 October 1984
				4 November 1984	31 December 1984			Rajiv I		Rajiv Gandhi
21			Ziaur Rahman Ansari (MoS, I/C)	31 December 1984	25 September 1985			Rajiv II
Minister of Transport
22			Bansi Lal	25 September 1985	4 June 1986		Indian National Congress (I)	Rajiv II		Rajiv Gandhi
			Rajiv Gandhi (Prime Minister)	4 June 1986	24 June 1986
23			Mohsina Kidwai	24 June 1986	22 October 1986
Minister of Surface Transport
24			Rajesh Pilot (MoS, I/C)	22 October 1986	2 December 1989		Indian National Congress (I)	Rajiv II		Rajiv Gandhi
25			K. P. Unnikrishnan	6 December 1989	10 November 1990		Janata Dal	Vishwanath		V. P. Singh
26			Manubhai Kotadia	21 November 1990	26 April 1991		Samajwadi Janata Party (Rashtriya)	Chandra Shekhar		Chandra Shekhar
			Chandra Shekhar (Prime Minister)	26 April 1991	21 June 1991
27			Jagdish Tytler (MoS, I/C)	21 June 1991	15 September 1995		Indian National Congress (I)	Rao		P. V. Narasimha Rao
28			M. Rajasekara Murthy (MoS, I/C)	15 September 1995	16 May 1996
			Atal Bihari Vajpayee (Prime Minister)	16 May 1996	1 June 1996		Bharatiya Janata Party	Vajpayee I		Atal Bihari Vajpayee
29			T. G. Venkatraman	1 June 1996	21 April 1997		Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam	Deve Gowda		H. D. Deve Gowda
				21 April 1997	19 March 1998			Gujral		Inder Kumar Gujral
30			Sedapatti Muthiah	19 March 1998	8 April 1998		All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam	Vajpayee II		Atal Bihari Vajpayee
31			M. Thambidurai	8 April 1998	8 April 1999
32			Nitish Kumar	8 April 1999	5 August 1999		Samata Party
33			Jaswant Singh	5 August 1999	13 October 1999		Bharatiya Janata Party
(32)			Nitish Kumar	13 October 1999	22 November 1999		Samata Party	Vajpayee III
34			Rajnath Singh	22 November 1999	25 October 2000		Bharatiya Janata Party
			Atal Bihari Vajpayee (Prime Minister)	25 October 2000	7 November 2000
Minister of Road Transport and Highways
35			B. C. Khanduri (MoS, I/C until 24 May 2003)	7 November 2000	22 May 2004		Bharatiya Janata Party	Vajpayee III		Atal Bihari Vajpayee
36			T. R. Baalu	23 May 2004	2 October 2004		Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam	Manmohan I		Manmohan Singh
Minister of Shipping, Road Transport and Highways
(36)			T. R. Baalu	2 October 2004	22 May 2009		Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam	Manmohan I		Manmohan Singh
Minister of Road Transport and Highways
37			Kamal Nath	28 May 2009[3]	19 January 2011		Indian National Congress	Manmohan II		Manmohan Singh
38			C. P. Joshi	19 January 2011	15 June 2013
			Manmohan Singh (Prime Minister)	15 June 2013	17 June 2013
39			Oscar Fernandes	17 June 2013[4]	26 May 2014
40			Nitin Gadkari	27 May 2014[5]	Incumbent		Bharatiya Janata Party	Modi I		Narendra Modi
								Modi II
								Modi III

Ministers of State

	Portrait		Minister	Term of office			Political party	Ministry	Prime Minister
				From	To	Period
Minister of State for Transport and Railways
1			K. Santhanam	1 October 1948	17 April 1952		Indian National Congress	Nehru I		Jawaharlal Nehru
Minister of State for Transport and Communications
2			Humayun Kabir	17 April 1957	10 April 1958		Indian National Congress	Nehru III		Jawaharlal Nehru
3			Raj Bahadur	17 April 1957	10 April 1962
Minister of State for Transport and Civil Aviation
4			C. M. Poonacha	24 January 1966	13 March 1967		Indian National Congress	Indira I		Indira Gandhi
Minister of State for Shipping and Transport
5			Om Mehta	2 May 1971	5 February 1973		Indian National Congress (R)	Indira III		Indira Gandhi
6			Mansinhji Bhasaheb Rana	5 February 1973	11 January 1974
7			H. M. Trivedi	17 October 1974	24 March 1977
8			Buta Singh	8 June 1980	15 January 1982		Indian National Congress (I)	Indira IV		Indira Gandhi
9			Sitaram Kesri	15 January 1982	29 January 1983
10			Ziaur Rahman Ansari	29 January 1983	31 October 1984
				4 November 1984	31 December 1984			Rajiv I		Rajiv Gandhi
Minister of State for Transport
Minister of State in the Department of Railways				25 September 1985	22 October 1986		Indian National Congress	Rajiv II		Rajiv Gandhi
11A			Madhavrao Scindia
Minister of State in the Department of Surface Transport
11B			Rajesh Pilot
Minister of State in the Department of Civil Aviation
11C			Jagdish Tytler
Minister of State for Surface Transport
12			Debendra Pradhan	19 March 1998	13 October 1999		Bharatiya Janata Party	Vajpayee II		Atal Bihari Vajpayee
				13 October 1999	27 May 2000			Vajpayee III
13			Hukmdev Narayan Yadav	27 May 2000	2 November 2001
Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways
14			Shripad Naik	24 May 2003	8 September 2003		Bharatiya Janata Party	Vajpayee III		Atal Bihari Vajpayee
15			Pon Radhakrishnan	8 September 2003	22 May 2004
16			K. H. Muniyappa	23 May 2004	22 May 2009		Indian National Congress	Manmohan I		Manmohan Singh
17			Mahadeo Singh Khandela	28 May 2009	27 October 2012			Manmohan II
18			R. P. N. Singh	28 May 2009	19 January 2011
19			Jitin Prasada	19 January 2011	28 October 2012
20			Tushar Amarsinh Chaudhary	19 January 2011	26 May 2014
21			Sarve Satyanarayana	28 October 2012	26 May 2014
22			Krishan Pal Gurjar	27 May 2014	9 November 2014		Bharatiya Janata Party	Modi I		Narendra Modi
(15)			Pon Radhakrishnan	9 November 2014	3 September 2017
25			Mansukh Mandaviya	5 July 2016	30 May 2019
26			V. K. Singh	31 May 2019	9 June 2024			Modi II
27			Ajay Tamta	10 June 2024	Incumbent			Modi III
28			Harsh Malhotra

Deputy Ministers

	Portrait		Minister	Term of office			Political party	Ministry	Prime Minister
				From	To	Period
Deputy Minister of Transport and Communications
1			Mohiuddin Ahmed (Civil Aviation)	2 April 1958	10 April 1962		Indian National Congress	Nehru III		Jawaharlal Nehru
(1)			Mohiuddin Ahmed	16 April 1962	1 September 1963			Nehru IV
2			Bijoy Chandra Bhagavati	8 May 1962	1 September 1963
Deputy Minister of Transport
(1)			Mohiuddin Ahmed	1 September 1963	27 May 1964		Indian National Congress	Nehru IV		Jawaharlal Nehru
				27 May 1964	9 June 1964			Nanda I		Gulzarilal Nanda
				15 June 1964	5 January 1966			Shastri		Lal Bahadur Shastri
Deputy Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation
3			Jahanara Jaipal Singh	15 February 1966	13 March 1967		Indian National Congress	Indira I		Indira Gandhi
Deputy Minister of Shipping and Transport
4			Bhakt Darshan	18 March 1967	18 February 1969		Indian National Congress	Indira II		Indira Gandhi
5			Sardar Iqbal Singh	14 February 1969	18 March 1971		Indian National Congress (R)
6			Pranab Mukherjee	11 January 1974	10 October 1974		Indian National Congress (R)	Indira II
7			Chaudhary Dalbir Singh	1 December 1975	24 March 1977
Deputy Minister of Surface Transport
8			P. Namgyal	15 February 1988	4 July 1989		Indian National Congress (I)	Rajiv II		Rajiv Gandhi

Notes and References

1. Web site: Organization History of Ministry of Shipping. 27 August 2023.
2. Web site: Ministry of Shipping renamed as Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways. 10 November 2020. NewsBharati.com.
3. Web site: Portfolios of Manmohan Singh Cabinet announced. 28 May 2009. 27 August 2023. The New Indian Express.
4. Web site: Oscar Fernandes appointed new MoRTH Minister. 18 June 2023. Construction Week.
5. Web site: Shri Nitin Gadkari Has Taken Charge as the Minister for Road Transport, Highways and Shipping. 29 May 2014. 27 August 2023. Press Information Bureau.