Modi 2.0: several ministers including Sitharaman, Jaishankar take charge, outline plans

New Delhi: Several ministers of the Modi government Friday took charge of their ministries within hours of their portfolios being allocated, with some outlining their plans and speaking about challenges.

Later, they got together at the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) in South Block for the first meeting of the Narendra Modi Cabinet, that took some key decisions like announcing pension to farmers, traders and shopkeepers.

The cabinet also decided to convene the first session of the 17th Lok Sabha from June 17 to July 26, with the regular budget to be presented on July 5.

Prime Minister Modi also took charge of his office in the morning. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and her deputy Anurag Thakur, External Affairs minister S Jaishankar, Railway minister Piyush Goyal, Information and Broadcasting minister Prakash Javadekar, Minority Affairs minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan were among the ministers who took charge on Friday.

Minister of the newly-formed ‘Jal Shakti’ Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, Minister for Personnel Jitendra Singh, Power and New and Renewable Energy minister R K Singh also assumed charge of their ministries.

Prahlad Singh Patel, a five-time lawmaker from Madhya Pradesh and known for supporting ban on cow slaughter, took charge as the Culture minister (independent charge).

“I am happy that there will be continuity in the work that we had begun in the first stint….Newer speed of implementing infra projects and customer satisfaction that is the new Indian Railways and new India that the PM has charted for us,” said Piyush Goyal, who retained the Railways portfolio.