Lalu impresses international community

NEW DELHI: Impressed by the phenomenal success of Indian Railways and growing worldwide interest in its spectacular performance, a four-member delegation of INSEAD, a leading international business school having campuses in Europe and Asia, met Railway Minister Lalu Prasad here on Thursday to get a first hand account of the success story.

The delegation, led by Frank Brown, Dean, INSEAD, (Asia campus) was given a detailed presentation on the incredible and historic 'turnaround story of Indian Railways', which has now become a case study for many national and international business schools.
   
During his interaction with the delegation, Mr Prasad took pride in the fact that the Railways had created history by generating a cash surplus of over Rs. 20,000 crore during 2006-07 as against Rs. 14,700 crore in the previous year.
    
''This was made possible without imposing undue burden on the common man,'' he said.
   
Brown is also a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut State Societies of Certified Public Accountants.

The other members of the delegation were Soumitra Dutta, Dean of External Relations (INSEAD), Maziar Sabet, Director, External Relations, INSEAD, and Mr Nigel Yeung.
 
INSEAD is also to conduct a week-long training module on 'Customer Strategies' as part of Advance Management Programme for senior officers of Indian Railways.
  
The objective of the module at INSEAD is to expose railway officers to the experience of international managers and provide a major shift in their perspective to a macro plan.
 
Based on the experience of the six pilot programmes attended by about 200 Indian railway officers, the Railway Ministry has signed a contract with INSEAD for conducting 30 more programmes (35 officers in each programme) during the next five years.
 
The first programme of this series is to be held in Singapore during December 10-14.  
 
INSEAD, with its fully connected campuses in France and Singapore, has more than 25 years of experience in developing tailor-made programmes for the leading companies.
 
The eminent members of INSEAD's Global India Council include Adi Godrej, Chairman, Godrej Group; Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, CMD, Biocon Limited; Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman,  Bharti Enterprises; Narayana Murthy, Chairman & Chief Mentor, Infosys Technologies Limited; and Deepak Parekh, Chairman, HDFC Limited.  
 
Recently, graduates of premier technical and B-schools from across the world, including from Harvard, Wharton, Darden, MIT and McCombs had visited India to listen to Prasad on the Indian Railways's economic rejuvenation and the growth oriented reforms with a human face.