'Lalunomics' leaves US bureaucrats mesmerised

New Delhi, May 1 (UNI) After students from top grade US business schools, it was today the turn of the US administration to get an insight into 'Lalunomics' -- straight from Railway Minister Lalu Prasad himself.

In plain terms, 'Lalunomics' has come to signify the strategy, which has successfully turned transport behemoth Indian Railways, teetering on the brink of a collapse and mired in a terminal debt trap barely five years ago -- into a Rs 20,000 crore surplus entity with improved passenger amenities.

Taking pride in his success story that has fired the imagination of corporate czars, management students and political leaders in the western countries, Mr Prasad told the 16-member US study group that he had scripted the turnaround without taking recourse to the capitalistic prescriptions of downsizing, privatising and corporatising the Railways.

The delegation, led by Prof. David Blair of the National Defence University, Washington and comprising officials from civil, foreign and defence services, heard in rapt attention as Mr Prasad and senior Railway officers talked about ''growth with a human face'' in the government's largest department.

The minister said the success of Indian Railways had shattered the myth of western model of development, and the delegation members were ''impressed and convinced'' that it had been accomplished without any retrenchment or any hike in passenger fares and freight rates.

''The Railway success story is just not about the Railways. It is rather a model for a growth suiting the socio-economic conditions of a country like India, much different from the US model, which relies on downsizing and retrenchments to turn a company into a profit-making entity,'' he told the delegation.

He said the Railways had worked on the principles of higher volumes, falling unit cost and tariff and improved market share and operating margins.

The delegation comprised Col. Lewis C. Naumchil (US Army), Lt.

Col. Timothy J. Fennell (Air Force), Lt Col. Gary W. Dickinson (Air Force), Admiral Gerard Mauer, . Col. Laura Richardson and Portia E.

McCollum, Foreign Service Officer, Department of State.

The Railway Minister has earlier addressed students from Harvard, Universities of Texas and Wharton, Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts as well as Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

MORE UNI