Uttar Pradesh

• 03 Nov 2023

Saumya Mathur Becomes the First Woman General Manager of North Eastern Railway

Why In News?

On November 1, 2023, Soumya Mathur, Additional Member (Finance), Railway Board, assumed charge as the first woman General Manager of North Eastern Railway (NER).

Key Points:

• Due to the transfer of General Manager of North Eastern Railway, Chandraveer Raman, Soumya Mathur has been appointed as the new General Manager of North Eastern Railway by the Railway Board after the approval of the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet.
• Soumya Mathur is the first woman General Manager of North Eastern Railway, till now no woman officer has been made the General Manager of NER since its formation in 1952.
• NER's new GM Soumya Mathur entered the railway service through the 1987 batch of the Indian Railway Accounts Service (IRAS). The first appointment was in Vadodara, Western Railway. He has worked on many important posts in the Accounts Department in Western, Northern and Central Railways.
• Apart from this, she has worked on important posts like Additional Divisional Railway Manager, Western Railway/Mumbai Central, Divisional Railway Manager, North Western Railway/Jaipur, Principal Financial Advisor/Metro Railway/Kolkata and Principal Financial Advisor/South Eastern Railway/Kolkata.
• He has also served as Divisional Railway Manager, Jaipur. During his tenure, Jaipur station got platinum green rating.
• Soumya Mathur also successfully operated the Gandhinagar-Jaipur route as an all-women main line station. He was given the special award of Best Change Agent for Transformation Initiative by the Railway Board for his change initiative. In addition, he has participated in senior management training programs at JICA (Japan), INSEAD (Singapore) and ICLIF (Malaysia).
• It is noteworthy that the North Eastern Railway came into existence on April 14, 1952. It was formed by merging the Fatehgarh district of Avadh Tirhut Railway, Assam Railway and the old BB&CI Railway. It was inaugurated by the first Prime Minister of India, Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru.
• North-East Frontier Railway was formed on January 15, 1958. After this, Gorakhpur was made the headquarters of North Eastern Railway. At present there are three divisions in North Eastern Railway, with their headquarters at Varanasi, Lucknow and Izzatnagar.