All those foreign business schools and their professors who lionised former Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav need to be asked for an explanation as to why the Railways is in such a terrible shape today. Under Prasad, several worthies wrote of a great turnaround and argued this was a structural turnaround, not related to the economic boom of the last few years. If it was a structural turnaround, the operating ratio would not have got worse in just a few months. Prasad is a shrewd politician and did many great things — the Garib Rath and the extra loading of trains helped the Railways rake in a lot of money. But he did not address the structural issues of productivity and competition.
Sanjiv Singh, New Delhi
