Jaya Verma Sinha (Image: X.com/Milan Sharma)

Jaya Verma Sinha to become the first ever woman Chairperson and CEO of the Railway Board. She would be the first woman to head the apex decision making body in the 118-year history of the Railway Board.

She would succeed Anil Kumar Lahoti whose tenure would be over on August 31, 2023.

The government notification on her appointment read, “the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the appointment of Jaya Verma Sinha, Indian Railway Management Service (IRMS) Member Operations and Business Development) Railway Board to the post of Chairman and the CEO…..with effect from the date of assumption on or after September 1, 2023.”

An alumnus of Allahabad University, Ms. Sinha is presently member, Operations and Business Development, Railway Board.

Recently, she was part of railways media interactions on the Balasore incident, explaining the intricate signalling system. The accident had killed 300 people.

In 1988, she joined Indian Railway Traffic Service and has worked with Northern Railway, Eastern and South-Eastern Railway. While she held tenure as Additional Member of Traffic Transportation, Railway Board, the railways registered a growth of over 20 percent in the freight segment, which crossed the 1.5 billion tonnes of annual freight.

In her career which has spanned 35 years, she has played different roles in different verticals – operations, commercial, IT and vigilance. She has worked at the High Commission of India at Dhaka, Bangladesh for four years as Railway Advisor. The Kolkata-Dhaka Maitree Express was inaugurated during her tenure. She was also the first woman as South Eastern Railway’s Principal Chief Operations Manager.

She would continue till her tenure as the Chairperson of Railway Board, which would end on December 31, 2024, though her retirement is due on October 1, Businessline reported.