Railways' under Lalu draws flak

It also claimed that a new form of presentation of accounts was started during the Lalu regime, which projected a concept of cash surplus before dividend, making the railway finances “look good”.

If these changes had not been made, the accumulated surplus of Rs 89,000 crore during the five-year period would have come down to Rs 39,500 crore.
“The analysis shows that the best period financially in the last 20 years was 1991-96 and not the last five years,” said the document presented by Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee in the Lok Sabha on Friday. C K Jaffer Sharief was the railway minister during this period.

Referring to the performance of the Railways during 2004-05-2008-09, the 70-page document observed that an analysis of the overall growth of the Railways during the period showed that the performance was below par if the normally accepted growth elasticity of 1.25 was reckoned.

Prasad, who had dismissed the white paper as a “black paper and no paper at all,” was in the House when the report was presented. The findings of the white paper were also vindicated by the report of a parliamentary committee, which asked the Ministry of Railways to improve its budgeting mechanism and take necessary steps to check excess expenditure.

“The committee is not happy with such lack of concern on the part of the ministry for observing fiscal discipline,” said the Public Accounts Committee in its seventh report.