RJD supremo Lalu Prasad Yadav is having a rough ride these days. First he was humbled in the Lok Sabha elections. And now incumbent Railways Minister Mamata Banerjee is busy shredding his reputation as the man who almost single handedly turned around the Indian Railways. A white paper tabled by Banerjee in Parliament trashes Lalu's track record at the helm of the Railways Ministry asserting that his performance was actually "below par".
Amidst the blame game, though, experts say the core issues remain unaddressed. Says V.K. Agarwal, former Chairman, Railway Board: "Whether its Lalu or Mamata, the basic problems related to railways remain. Railways is constantly losing freight market share to roads and there are serious issues with traffic congestion in both passenger and freight segments."
MAMATA'S ASSERTION: Railway's contribution to the GDP remained stagnant at 1.18 per cent during 2004-09.
THE REALITY: Considering that the economy was growing at a rapid clip during the same period and there was growing competition from roads in freight and passenger segments, experts say 1.18 per cent is satisfactory. Clearly, capacity constraints prevented the Railways from turning in a better performance.
MAMATA'S ASSERTION: Lalu's claim of cash surplus of Rs 88,669 crore during 2004-09 is inaccurate. The actual figure was Rs 39,500 crore.
THE REALITY: Lalu introduced "Operating Profit" in the Railways balance sheets to show the cash surplus position. It's a modern analytical tool to present detailed picture of a company's performance and doesn't make any difference to the cash-based accounting practices used by the Indian Railways.
MAMATA'S ASSERTION: Losses in passenger operations more than doubled during Lalu's tenure and were almost Rs 14,000 crore in 2008-09.
THE REALITY: Losses in passenger operations are largely due to excess capacities built on commercially unviable routes. Many of these lines remain underutilised, in turn, bleeding the Railways. Lalu alone can't be blamed for this as it's a legacy of the past due to socio-economic and political compulsions.
