Mumbai: Western Railway Appoints Vineet Abhishek As New Chief Public Relations Officer

Mumbai: Vineet Abhishek, an Indian Railway Traffic Service (IRTS) Officer of 2010 Civil Services batch, has joined as the new Chief Public Relations Officer (CPRO) of Western Railway on 10th June, 2024. A management graduate, Vineet has more than 19 years of experience in urban planning and transportation and has straddled public, corporate and non-profit sectors.

In his previous position as the Senior Divisional Commercial Manager of Mumbai Central Division, Western Railway, he led multiple initiatives in the field of ticket checking and non-fare revenue which led the Division to cross the Rs. 4000 crore revenue mark in year 2023-2024 for the first time in its history.

Vineet pursued higher studies and research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA during the year 2019-2020 and 2021-2023, where along with cross registration at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, he specialized in sustainable transportation, infrastructure planning, municipal financing, budgeting and Public Private Partnerships (PPPs). At MIT, he held various fellowships like Hubert H Humphrey Fulbright fellowship, JN Tata Fellowship and MIT’s Governance Innovation Research Fellowship.

During his higher studies, Shri Vineet participated in various on-site projects – namely TOD project with Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, Urban Transport Financing Project with ITDP Africa, Chennai City Partnership Project with the World Bank, Public Bus Electrification Project with Nairobi Metropolitan Area Transport Authority and Institute for Transportation & Development Policy (ITDP) + International Association of Public Transport (UITP).

Between June to August, 2023, Vineet Abhishek was in Brazil as the MIT Gov/Lab fellow on a joint- collaborative project with the country’s Ministry of Governance and Innovation (MGI) to research the civil services reforms in the country.

Before joining the civil services, Vineet had worked for six years on multiple projects dealing with industrial competitiveness, social infrastructure, government consultancy, project financing and CSR in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan.

Beyond his professional engagements, Vineet is an avid commentator on sustainable transportation and public policy issues, and his research papers, editorials and book reviews have been published in several weekly and daily news papers.