Cabinet Ministers of India

What is a Cabinet Minister and Union Cabinet?

The prime minister of India is the head of the Republic of India. The constitution has entrusted the prime minister with the responsibility of governance. There are numerous sectors affecting the lives of the people, therefore, a ministry is a higher authority that manages that sector of public administration. A minister is the head of any such specific ministry. The prime minister runs the government through various ministries and he has the right to allocate a certain ministry to a person of his choice- called a minister.

A group of central ministries headed by the prime minister is called a union cabinet. A minister of the key portfolios of the government is designated as a cabinet minister. In other words, the union cabinet consists of cabinet ministers and the prime minister. Union cabinet is the highest decision making body in India. Union cabinet advises the prime minister and vice versa. The respective cabinet minister implements the decisions taken and directives from the prime minister in his ministry.

The prime minister has the sole right for the appointment and removal of any minister from the ministry. In actual facts, the prime minister basically advises the president to appoint a minister. The cabinet is presided by the prime minister of India. In the hierarchy, the cabinet minister works under the prime minister. The prime minister himself is in charge of certain portfolios and any other portfolio which has not been allotted.

Council of Ministers and Categories of Ministries in the Government

A council of states is the executive body which consists of four categories of ministers; the Cabinet Ministers, Minister of States, Minister of States with independent charge, and Deputy Ministers.

Cabinet Ministers: The Cabinet of India is the core of the Council of Ministers of the Union Government and the collective decision-making body. All the important portfolios of the Central Government together comprise the Cabinet. It is the role of the Cabinet primarily to keep the confidence of the Houses of Parliament during the party's tenure in the Union government. It is the collective responsibility of the Cabinet to be accountable to the two Houses of Parliament, for its policies and schemes.

Minister of States with Independent Charge: The minister of states with an independent charge has the same powers as that of the cabinet minister in relation to his ministry. However, they are not the members of the cabinet and hence do not attend the cabinet meetings unless invited in some special scenario.

Ministers of States: Ministers of states are given charge of some specific departments under the ministry. A minister of states is guided by the cabinet minister.

Deputy Ministers: Deputy ministers assist the cabinet ministers is their administrative, parliamentary, and political duties. These ministers are of the lowest rank in the government.

List of Ministers of India with Portfolio

Prime Minister and His Portfolio

Shri Narendra Modi	Prime Minister and also in-charge of: Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions;Department of Atomic Energy; Department of Space; and All important policy issues; and All other portfolios not allocated to any Minister.

Cabinet Ministers of India

Ministers of State

List of Cabinet Ministers of India with Photo and Portfolio 2014

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's cabinet is slightly smaller in size than that of his predecessor Manmohan Singh's 77. Modi's council of ministers include 66 ministers, including 28 cabinet ministers, the Prime Minister, 39 Ministers of State and Minister of State (Independent charge) combined. The top members of the cabinet ministers are Rajnath Singh who has got Home Ministry, Sushma Swaraj who has been handed External Affairs Ministry and Arun Jaitley who is going to oversee Finance and Corporate Affairs.

The Narendra Modi government effected its first cabinet ministers' reshuffle since taking office on 5 July, 2016 and then on September 3, 2017. The key changes made during the last reshuffle was the elevation of Nirmala Sitharaman to Cabinet rank with the responsibility of Defence portfolio. Minister Suresh Prabhu was moved to Commerce and Industry from his earlier ministry i.e. Railways. Piyush Goyal was handed the ministery of Railways instead. HRD Minister Smriti Irani has been shifted to Textiles. Babul Supriyo, the Union Minister of State for Urban Planning has been shifted to Heavy Industries. Minorities' Affairs Minister Najma Heptullah put in her papers to pave way for her deputy Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi.

Ministers of State
Cabinet Ministers
S.No	Ministries	Name	Photo
1	Ministry of Atomic Energy Ministry of Space Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions All important policy issues and all other portfolios not allocated to any Minister	Shri Narendra Modi
2	Minister without Portfolio	Arun Jaitley
	Ministry of Corporate Affairs
3	Ministry of Home Affairs	Shri Rajnath Singh
4	Ministry of External Affairs	Smt. Sushma Swaraj
5	Ministry of Road Transport and Highways	Nitin Gadkari
	Ministry of Shipping Ministry of Road Transport and Highways
	Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation
6	Minister of Commerce and Industry, Ministry of Civil Aviation	Suresh Prabhu
	Ministry of Civil Aviation
7	Minister of Statistics and Programme Implementation Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers	D. V. Sadananda Gowda
8	Minister of Drinking Water and Sanitation	Uma Bharti
9	Ministry of Consumer Affairs & Food & Public Distribution	Shri Ram Vilas Paswan
10	Ministry of Women & Child Development	Smt. Maneka Sanjay Gandhi
11	Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers and Minister of Parliamentary Affairs	Shri Ananth Kumar
12	Minister of Law and Justice; Minister of Electronics and Information Technology	Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad
13	Ministry of Health & Family Welfare	Jagat Prakash Nadda
14	Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises	Shri Anant Geete
15	Ministry of Food Processing Industries	Harsimrat Kaur Badal
16	Ministry of Rural Development Ministry of Mines Ministry of Panchayati Raj	Shri Narendra Singh Tomar
	Ministry of Panchayati Raj
	Minister of Mines
17	Ministry of Steel	Chaudhary Birender Singh
18	Ministry of Tribal Affairs	Jual Oram
19	Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.	Shri Radha Mohan Singh
20	Minister of Textiles and Minister of Information & Broadcasting	Smriti Irani
21	Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment	Shri Thawar Chand Gehlot
22	Ministry of Science and Technology Ministry of Earth Sciences Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change	Dr. Harsh Vardhan
	Ministry of Earth Science
23	Ministry of Human Resource Development	Shri Prakash Javadekar
24	Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas; and Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.	Shri Dharmendra Pradhan
25	Ministry of Railways; and Minister of Coal Ministry of Railways Ministry of Finance	Shri Piyush Goyal
26	Ministry of Defence	Shri Nirmala Sitharaman
27	Ministry of Minority Affairs	Shri Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi

State Ministers of India with Independent Charge
S.No	Ministries	Name	Photo
1	Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers	Rao Inderjit Singh
2	Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH)	Shripad Yesso Naik
3	Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region Department of Atomic Energy Department of Space Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Prime Minister's Office	Dr. Jitendra Singh
4	Minister of State Ministry of Culture Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change	Dr. Mahesh Sharma
5	Ministry of Railways Minister of State Ministry of Communications	Manoj Sinha
6	Ministry of Labour and Employment	Santosh Kumar Gangwar
7	Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises	Giriraj Singh
8	Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports; Minister of State in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting	Col. Rajyavardhan Rathore
9	Ministry of Power; Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.	Raj Kumar Singh
10	Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs	Hardeep Singh Puri
11	Ministry of Tourism	Alphons Kannanthanam
12	Ministry of Power Ministry of New and Renewable Energy	Shri Raj Kumar Singh

Ministers of State
S.No	Ministries	Name	Photo
1	External Affairs	General (Retd.) V.K. Singh
2	Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology	S.S. Ahluwalia
3	Social Justice and Empowerment	Ramdas Athawale
4	Rural Development	Ram Kripal Yadav
5	Mines and Coal	Haribhai Parthibhai Chaudhary
6	Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises	Giriraj Singh
7	Home Affairs	Hansraj Gangaram Ahir
8	Drinking Water and Sanitation	Ramesh Chandappa Jigajinagi
9	Railways	Rajen Gohain
10	Agriculture and Farmers Welfare and Panchayati Raj	Parshottam Rupala
11	External Affairs	M. J. Akbar
12	Human Resource Development	Upendra Kushwaha
13	Finance and Shipping	Radhakrishnan
14	Home Affairs	Kiren Rijiju
15	Social Justice and Empowerment	Krishan Pal
16	Tribal Affairs	Jaswantsinh Sumanbhai Bhabhor
17	Steel	Vishnu Deo Sai
18	Tribal Affairs	Sudarshan Bhagat
19	Science and Technology and Earth Sciences	Y.S. Chowdary
20	Civil Aviation	Jayant Sinha
21	Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises	Babul Supriyo
22	Food Processing Industries	Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti
23	Social Justice and Empowerment	Vijay Sampla
24	Parliamentary Affairs; Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation.	Arjun Ram Meghwal
25	Textiles	Ajay Tamta
26	Agriculture and Farmers Welfare	Smt. Krishna Raj
27	Road Transport and Highways Shipping and Chemicals and Fertilizers	Mansukh L. Mandaviya
28	Health and Family Welfare	Smt. Anupriya Patel
29	Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, Ministry Commerce and Industry.	C. R. Chaudhary
30	Law and Justice; Corporate Affairs	P.P. Chaudhary
31	Defence	Dr. Subhash Ramrao Bhamre
32	Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs; Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation	Vijay Goel
33	Finance	Shiv Pratap Shukla
34	Health and Family Welfare	Ashwini Kumar Choubey
35	Women and Child Development; Minority Affairs	Dr. Virendra Kumar
36	Skill Development and Entrepreneurship	Anantkumar Hegde
37	Agriculture and Farmers Welfare	Gajendra Singh Shekhawat
38	Human Resource Development; Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation	Satya Pal Singh

What is Union Cabinet of India and How it Works?

According to the Constitution of India, in the everyday administration the Prime Minister is assisted by the Council of Ministers, which consists of the Cabinet Ministers, Deputy Ministers, Ministers of State with independent charge, Ministers of State working with the Cabinet Ministers and others. The Prime Minister is the Chairperson of the Cabinet. The core Council of Ministers is called the Cabinet, ministers of which are decided by the PM. The various departments are allotted to various ministers by the PM. The PM presides over Cabinet meetings and oversees the important functions of the Cabinet. Ministers are removed from departments if the PM does not approve of the performance of the minister.

Cabinet Ministers and Prime Minister

The Prime Minister of India is the Head of the Union Government. Unlike the President who is the Head of the State, the PM is the Chief of government at the Centre In other words, he is the real head of the executive branch of the Union Government. He is the Leader of the House of Parliament to which he belongs.

As India follows the Westminster Model of constitutional democracy, it is the Prime Minister who oversees the day-to-day functioning of the Indian administration. He is also the Chief adviser to the President. The PM has many functions and powers. The PM holds the power to form his/her Council of Ministers, choosing members of his/her party for particular ministries within the working of the country.

The PM also oversees defence-related issues of the country. He makes all important policies and schemes of the government. He has to devote attention to all judicial appointments, appointments to State Administrative Tribunals, Central Administrative Tribunal, UPSC, Election Commission. The PM is solely in-charge of certain departments or ministries like Ministry of Planning, Department of Atomic Energy, Department of Space and Ministry of Personal, Public Grievances and Pensions.

Categories of Ministers in Government

There are three categories of ministers within the Council of Ministers - Cabinet, Ministers of State with independent charges and Ministers of State working with the Cabinet Ministers.

Roles and Responsibilities of Cabinet Ministers of India
The Cabinet of India is the core of the Council of Ministers of the Union Government, and the collective decision-making body. All the important portfolios of the Central Government together comprise the Cabinet. Some of the most important ministries are Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of External Affairs, Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Commerce and Industry and others.

The role of the Cabinet ranges from advising the Council of Ministers and provide assistance to them, attend Cabinet meetings called by either the Prime Minister or any one of the Cabinet ministers to discuss issues related to his ministry. More importantly, it is the role of the Cabinet primarily to keep the confidence of the Houses of Parliament during the party's tenure in the Union government. It is the collective responsibility of the Cabinet to be accountable to the two Houses of Parliament, for its policies and schemes.

Roles and Responsibilities of Ministers of State with independent charges
The Ministers of State with independent charges are the second category of ministers in the Council of Ministers. They are not as important in their role as the Cabinet. There is no overseeing Cabinet Minister for the portfolio of the Minister of state with independent charges.

Roles and Responsibilities of Ministers of State
Ministers of State working with the Cabinet Ministers are the third rank of ministers. These are junior ministers who assist the Cabinet Minister in the particular portfolio. These junior ministers look after one or two aspects of the Cabinet portfolio, and not the whole ministry as such.

Know about the Cabinets of Indian States
Andhra Pradesh	Maharashtra
Arunachal Pradesh	Manipur
Assam	Meghalaya
Bihar	Mizoram
Chhattisgarh	Nagaland
Delhi	Odissa
Goa	Pondicherry
Gujarat	Punjab
Haryana	Rajasthan
Himachal Pradesh	Sikkim
Jammu and Kashmir	Tamil Nadu
Jharkhand	Telangana
Karnataka	Tripura
Kerala	Uttar Pradesh
Madhya Pradesh	Uttarakhand