White Paper Railways exposes Lalu's jugglery with data

By presenting the White Paper on the present status of functioning of railways in Lok Sabha, Union Railway Minister Mamta Bannerjee has given a lie to the tall claims of record profit of her predecessor RJD boss Lalu Prasad Yadav. Lalu’s in his five years tenure as Union Railways Minister never tired of boasting record profit in railways, which was uptill now running in losses be he assumed charge. He painted his performance as railway minister so brilliantly that he came to be considered by the world famous business schools as management wizard. He was invited to address their students to tell them how he brought the railways on record profit platform in India. According to White Paper the performance of railways was “below par” during 2004-05 to 2008-09 when the RJD chief was at the helm of affairs.The White Paper says analysis of Ithe overall growth of railways during the period shows that the performance was below par if the normally accepted growth elasticity of 1.25 is reckoned.The losses from passenger operation were almost Rs 14,000 crores in 2008-09, the document said a new form of presentation of accounts was started during the Lalu regime which projected a concept of cash surplus before dividend which made the Railway finances “look good”.If these presentation changes had not been done, the accumulated surplus of Rs 89,000 crores during the five-year period would come down to Rs 39,500 crores. On the basis of his so-called brilliant performance as Union Minister of Railways, he was considered even in the country as the best union minister in UPA-1 period. Though his brilliant performance in the railways surprised everyone in the country, especially those who have experienced his worst regime of 15 years in Bihar. Rabri-Lalu duo ruled Bihar for 15 years and pluged the state into anarchy, mismanagement and misrule. His regime in Bihar is known as Jungle Raj where neither any development nor rule of law was seen during the period. The question then arises from where he got the magic wand that turned around the fortune of railways in five years, which he could not do in Bihar in 15 years. Now with the presentation of White paper on railways in Lok Sabha by his successor Mamta Bannerjee throws enough light on the present status of the functioning of railways, especially during the Lalu’s regime of 2004-05 to 2009 to expose his his jugglery with data to paint his false performance in brilliant colour that attracted the best business schools like Wharton and others all over the world. As White paper is the government statement of the fact in Parliament, its correctness of facts can not be disputed. It means he has misled the country by presenting the record profit of railways during his tenure through bungling of accounts. The Government must take appropriate action on the officials concerned for miscalculating the profit of railways.