The Hindu Business Line : Lalu `express' in full steam

With three more years to go, he can achieve much, if he gets his priorities right and also focuses on a few key areas, instead of spreading the resources too thin.

Mr Lalu Prasad is set to make his presentation on the performance of the Railways to IIM-A. He has proved beyond doubt that when it comes managing the behemoth, he has what it takes to deliver the goods.

MR LALU PRASAD has certainly brought luck to the lumbering giant.

Nothing succeeds like success and this is very much true of Mr Lalu Prasad, the indomitable Railway Minister, who has had a fairly good innings so far, what with the economy booming and the Railways adding a substantial Rs 13,000 crore to its earnings in 2005-06. On this single peg Mr Lalu Prasad can now hang all the changes and improvements he proposes, when he makes his pitch on September 18 to the graduates of the Indian Institute of Management — Ahmedabad.

Whatever the reason, Mr Lalu Prasad has certainly brought luck to the lumbering giant, which for the last decade-and-a-half saw political heavyweights of various hues doing their best, though unsuccessfully, to push it into the red. Aware of his limitations, yet keen to make a mark in heading a vital piece of infrastructure for the nation's economic growth, Mr Lalu Prasad chose to bring in as an OSD (Officer on Special Duty) someone he implicitly trusted from his home turf — Bihar. Aware that he was occupying the august chair at the Rail Bhavan, he went to battle.

Golden opportunity

Mr Lalu Prasad's first few forays — for instance, surprise inspections on rakes at wayside stations to check rampant overloading, and replacing plastic cups with the eco-friendly earthenware pots (kulhars) — caused more confusion than it did good and did not get him far. However, he soon zeroed in on what apparently was a golden opportunity to turn a liability into an asset.

Following the dictum `if you can't beat them, join them' and realising that overloading was rampant, with the consignor and the consignee merrily making money while the Railways continued to be the beast of burden, he decided to legalise overloading.

Now the Railways could claim its pound of flesh, charging for goods carried in excess of the design capacity. However, only time will tell whether this step will be counter-productive, as it could lead to increased equipment failures, or worse, lead to further overloading over what is now permitted.

A booming economy which has registered 8-9 per cent growth over the last few years, empowering General Managers of Zonal Railways to offer special stations-to-station rates for high-volume customers, clamping down on overloading on trucks by State governments, which has made rail tariff that much more attractive, and many more breaks, all led to the windfall freight earnings for 2005-06.

The disastrous move by Mr Ram Vilas Paswan and later Mr Nitish Kumar, as Railway Ministers, to create seven new zones that led to the doubling of administrative overheads may have been politically motivated. But the decentralisation exercise that resulted in the creation of new centres for command-and-control seems to have brought the administrative machinery closer to ground reality, and improved interaction with the rail users, in particular the business community, leading to the speeding up of the decision-making process, all to Mr Lalu Prasad's advantage.

More to be done

Hopefully, after the presentation of his success story at IIM-A, Mr Lalu Prasad will not relax. For, much remains to be done. There are scores of burning issues and knotty problems that need Mr Lalu Prasad's attention. Mr Nitish Kumar's path-breaking White Paper on Railway Projects, which was tabled before the Lok Sabha on July 28, 1998, listing out over Rs 35,000 crore worth of projects, of which nearly 90 per cent are un-remunerative, should come in handy to Mr Lalu Prasad to avoid new proposals for line doubling, new bridges, etc., eagerly pursued by MLAs and MPs to bolster the economy of their respective regions.

The proposed DFCs, or Dedicated Freight Corridors, also promise to place all old un-remunerative projects on the back burner, for at least a couple of years, while making some of them redundant.

Having won the first round, that too in the very crucial area of management — earning a sizable amount of revenue — Mr Lalu Prasad cannot but move ahead full steam and build upon this success by scoring a few more wins in the next few rounds.

While the DFCs would take some time to get off the ground, Mr Lalu Prasad must consciously eschew induction of new passenger trains, which will further crowd the tracks; indeed, this was the basic reason for planning DFCs in the first place.

In spite of various safety committee recommendations, derailments continue to plague the 64,000-km network. Mercifully, they have been freight trains and thus not highlighted, as they seldom result in loss of life. The derailments invariably, however, affect the throughput and could end up in a disaster if a passenger train is involved.

The Track ahead

However, Mr Lalu Prasad has proved beyond doubt that when it comes to managing the 1.7-million strong behemoth, which not only has a long history of continuous growth, he has what it takes to deliver the goods. He has clearly established that his basic instincts,invaluable in politics, work just as well in the boardroom.

With three more years to go, Mr Lalu Prasad can achieve much if he gets his priorities right and also focuses on a few key areas, instead of spreading the resources too thin.

Of course, there is always a lurking danger of the new Pay Commission wiping out much of the revenue gains, unless all-out efforts are made in the coming years to keep the manpower at the minimal levels.

(The author is Former Member — Mechanical — Railway Board.)

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