After IIM, Harvard students to get a taste of Lalu

After giving management tips at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and Bangalore, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad will share the reasons behind the turnaround of the Indian  Railways with a group of students from Harvard and Wharton.

"A group of 137 students -- 100 from Harvard Business School and rest from Wharton -- is coming to New Delhi for a lecture by Prasad on December 27. The minister will be sharing his thoughts with these students in a day long session at Rail Bhawan," a Railway Ministry source said.

Prasad is credited with the financial engineering of the turnaround of the loss-making Indian Railways, which earned a revenue surplus of Rs 13,000 crore (Rs 130 billion) by March 31, 2006.

IIM-Ahmedabad

had invited Prasad to deliver a lecture on management to the students of the premier business school. US corporate house General Electric's chief Jeffrey R. Immelt also came to India to study the phenomenal success of the Railways.

Management experts from Germany, Japan and France followed him. They all wanted to know the reason behind the Railways' success within a short span of 30 months.

Prasad says it was achieved by raising volume and through capacity enhancement. He once remarked that a cow would fall sick if it wasn't milked, suggesting the fuller utilisation of the Railways' capacity would yield financial benefits.