The Hindu Business Line : IIM-A awaits Lalu's Rly turnaround story

So far accused by political detractors of having ruined Bihar during his 15-year tenure as Chief Minister, the Railway Minister, Mr Lalu Prasad, in a reversal of roles, will explain before corporate and management gurus next month how he managed to positively turn around the world's largest Railways after assuming his current post in mid-2004.

IIM-A sources told Business Line that the much-awaited speech from one of India's best-known rustic politicians has been scheduled at the precincts on September 18.

Although the speech will be basically aimed at the IIM-A students and faculty, a number of business and management bosses are also likely to listen to the biggest story of turnaround of a Government behemoth post-1991 liberalisation.

"It remains to be seen whether Mr Prasad delivers his speech in English or in Hindi," the sources said.

The quintessentially rustic and witty politician, in an apparent image makeover, will explain the makeover of the Railways from a perpetually loss-making enterprise into a public sector unit that earned profit of nearly Rs 15,000 crore in 2005-06.

The sources said that IIM-A was "very impressed" with this performance; Prof G. Raghuram, a faculty member, had also conducted a detailed study on the Railways turnaround under Mr Prasad's stewardship.

The study became a subject matter of discussion and IIM-A decided to introduce this case study as part of its curriculum, besides, of course, inviting Mr Prasad to relate his experience with an organisation that boasts of employing about one crore people, directly and indirectly, and is the largest public sector enterprise in India, having a separate budget.

After suffering huge losses over the decades, since 2004-05 the Railways slowly emerged as the second-largest profit-earner in the public sector, after ONGC.

By 2004, according to the Rakesh Mohan Committee, the behemoth had turned into a white elephant that could collapse due to bankruptcy under the burden of Rs 61,000 crore by 2015 if the Government failed to take urgent remedial measures.

But the Minister's decisions - such as throwing open container train wagons to private parties - helped increase revenues, with increased loads of wagons alone yielding an additional Rs 7,200 crore.

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