Lalu plays magic wand to turn around Rlys fortune

New Delhi, Dec 31: The minister may have fumbled with his Englishbefore corporate leaders-in-the-making at the elite Harvard and Whartonbusiness schools, but the facts were all right.

Basking in the image of the 'uncrowned CEO' of Indian Railways,Lalu Prasad's out-of-the-box initiatives continued to work wonders forthe transport behemoth, firmly setting it on the path of achieving afund surplus of Rs 20,000 crore during the current fiscal, while thespectacular balance sheet sparked off both admiration and curiosity ofbusiness geniuses at Harvard, Wharton and the country's own IIMs in theyear that was.

As the maverick politician's talismanic touch to the trackremained undiminished for yet another year, mandarins in Rail Bhavanwere upbeat about the Railways' achieving its fund balance of Rs 20,000crore and freight loading of 726 million tonnes by March 2007.

The acknowledgement of the minister's impressive initiatives camenot only from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh but also from businessleaders, CEOs of multinational banks and the faculty and students oftop grade business schools, who made a beeline for Rail Bhavan to getan insight into the Railways' turnaround.

Donning the cap of a high-profile 'management guru', Mr Prasadgleefully divulged his success mantra, annihilating the myth of westernmodel of development that entails corporatisation, rightsizing andretrenchment.

Surely, there were Doubting Thomases, who questioned theminister's grabbing the entire credit for the Railways' turnaround andwhether the growth momentum could be sustained for long.

Yet the Lalu juggernaut cruised at a bewildering speed, breachingthe national frontiers, as the success story was heard loudly in the USand European countries, the high seats of capitalism, where the railwaysystems are, ironically, running at a loss and are also heavilysubsidised.

This does not mean that everything was rosy with the Railways in2006. There were 196 'consequential' train accidents duringJanuary-November in which 162 people lost their lives and 253 sustainedinjuries.

But what rattled the Railways were the serial blasts in Mumbai'ssuburban train system on July 11 that left 187 dead, exposing the laxsecurity system and accentuating the fact that trains were becoming asoft target for terror attacks.

The year will also be remembered for an archaic rail bridgecrashing down on a passenger train near Sasaram In Bihar, which leftover 30 killed. In addition, dismal passenger amenities and laxsecurity in moving trains remained critical areas of concern.

At a very personal level, Mr Prasad suffered a setback whenGujarat High Court (October 13) quashed the constitution of the JusticeU C Banerjee Committee, set up to inquire into the February 27, 2002blaze in Sabarmati Express at Godhra station.

On the positive side, the Prime Minister's laying of the foundationstone of the Rs 22000 crore Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC), touted asthe most ambitious infrastructure project of the Railways till date,the launch of 'Garib Rath', allowing common people to travel in ACcomfort at an affordable fare, the commencement of a second rail linkbetween India and Pakistan and the flagging off of the country's firstdouble stack train were the most significant events.

The Union Cabinet formally approved the DFC project--- tracksexclusively meant for super fast freight trains cruising at a speed of100 km per hour as opposed to the 25 kmph at present, which wouldfacilitate plying of higher axle load wagon and double stack containers.

The Eastern Corridor would extend from Ludhiana to Sonnagar(Bihar) while the Western Corridor would connect the Jawaharlal NehruPort Trust in Maharashtra to Dadri in Uttar Pradesh. A new publicsector undertaking --- Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of IndiaLtd (DFCCIL) --- was formed to implement the project.

Equally momentous was the Railways' decision to throw opencontainer train operations to the private sector in January. The movecarries the promise of a four-fold increase in traffic and anadditional Rs 12,000 crore in revenues for the sector over the nextthree years.

In another historic decision, the Railways' introduced a newtimetable, replacing the one based on a timetable prepared in 1866 byBritish company Bradshaw, reducing running time of express trains by upto four hours.

'Thar Express', connecting Munabao in Rajasthan and Khokrapar inSindh province in Pakistan started its service on February 18, markingthe resumption of the rail link that was snapped after the 1965 war.This is the second rail link between the two countries, which hadresumed Samjhauta Express linking Lahore with Attari in July 2003.

'Garib Rath' trains, introduced from October 4, are runningbetween Patna and Nizamuddin and Saharasa and Amritsar while these arelikely to commence operations soon between Chennai and Nizamuddin andBandra and Nizamuddin, On March 23, Mr Prasad flagged off the country'sfirst double stack container (DSC) train on the Jaipur-Pipavav portroute at Jaipur. The DSC train can carry 180 TEU (20-foot equivalentunit) containers against 90 TEU containers in a single stack train. Itcan carry a payload of 2,500 tonnes against 1,500 tonnes in a singlestack train.

The earnings of the Railways zoomed phenomenally. The performancein respect of loading went up from 421.95 MT in April-November 2005 to464.39 MT in April-November 2006, an increase of 10.6 per cent, whilefreight earnings went up from Rs.22994.33 crore to Rs.26232.60 crore,registering an increase of 14.08 per cent.

Passenger earnings also registered an upward trend, going up fromRs. 9843.36 crore to Rs.11100.43 crore during the period, an increaseof 12.77 per cent.

The robust health of freight revenues was secured through innovativeschemes like Freight Forwarder, Traditional Empty Flow DirectionFreight Discount, Loyalty Discount, Long-term Special Incentive,Mini-Rake, Two-Point Rake and Wagon Investment Scheme (WIS). Worriedabout the loss making passenger segment, the Railways declared the yearas Passenger Service With A Smile'' and unfolded schemes to beundertaken through the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) route. As partof the scheme, at least 400 railway stations would be modernised andequipped in the first phase with facilities like ATMs, Cyber Cafes,food plazas, ticket reservation through SMS, better electronic signagesand public address systems.

Longer trains, having 24 coaches, were introduced to accommodatepassengers in the waiting list. The work of extending platforms at 513railway stations to accommodate the 24-coach trains was completed atmore than 250 stations.

The Railways also identified 17 railway stations which would bedeveloped as world class stations. These are New Delhi, ChhatrapatiShivaji Station, Mumbai, Howrah, Chennai Central, Amritsar, Ahmedabad,Bangalore, Bhopal, Bhubaneshwar, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Mathura, Pune,Varanasi, Patna, Secunderabad and Thiruvananthapuram.

It also signed deals with seven banks --- SBI, Bank of Baroda,Canara Bank, Dena Bank, Indian Bank, Punjab National Bank and UnionBank of India ---for setting up Automatic Teller Machines at railwaystations in a step aimed at qualitatively upgrading the profile ofpassenger amenities. The deal is expected to swell the Railways'coffers by Rs 25 crore annually.

Mr Prasad announced proposals to set up a new locomotive Factoryat Chapra in Bihar and a Rail Coach Factory at Rae Bareli in UttarPradesh to meet the increasing traffic demand.

More importantly, he made a grand announcement that 7,500 outletswould be set up for farmers at railway stations across the country,which would enable farmers to distribute and market their produce fromthese outlets.

Last year the Railways had generated a profit of Rs 13,000 crore,the second biggest after ONGC, leaving behind even the Reliance Group.

This is just the beginning. Asli cinema to baaki hai (the realmovie is yet to come),'' a beaming Lalu told reporters after hisinterface with Wharton and Harvard students in the closing week ofDecember.

The minister can be trusted for it in the New Year, given his track record.

Not surprisingly then, he has been invited by the World Bank aswell as the Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy at Mussoorie to deliverlectures on how he benchmarked the government's biggest department as acash-rich entity with a spectacular turnaround.

UNI