March 28, 2002

    Shri I.I.M.S Rana will be the new Chairman of the Railway Board and ex-officio Principal Secretary to the Government of India. He will be taking over on 31^st of this month from the present Chairman and ex-officio Principal Secretary to the Government of India, Shri R.N.Malhotra, who goes on superannuation.

    Born on 8^th June 1943 at Delhi, Shri Rana graduated from the Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh in 1963 with Honours and was a Silver Medalist. Presently he is serving as Member Engineering, Railway Board.

    After a brief stint with IISCO at Burnpur, West Bengal in 1963, Mr. Rana joined Indian Railways in 1964 in the cadre of Indian Railway Service of Engineers after securing the top position in the All Indian Engineering Service Examination.

    During his long service career of 37 years, Mr. Rana successfully handled a large number of challenging assignments like Construction of Rail Coach Factory at Kapurthala, the largest coach factory of world, in record time of 2 years only, Giddalaur-Nandyal gauge conversion project, Goa gauge conversion project in an extremely tight time schedule and was the Divisional Railway Manager of Danapur Division of Eastern Railway in Bihar for more than 3 years. During his tenure, Danapur Division showed all-round improvement in all spheres.

    During his tenure as GM, Eastern Railway, the Railway faced the worst ever flood damages. Under his leadership, the officers and staff successfully rescued over 1000 passengers from the marooned Teesta Torsa Express at Swadinpur, which was inundated by flash flood. Rescuing operation was done in almost waist-deep water and flood restoration work was carried out in record time.

    Mr. Rana has vast experience in all round working of Railways. He has traveled widely and has been to U.K, U.S.A and Japan. He was leader of the UNDP Training Programme for Railway Engineers.