Tenure As A Union Minister
Yadav was elected to the 14th Lok Sabha from Chhapra and Madhepura seats of Bihar. He was able to defeat the high profile BJP leader Rajiv Pratap Rudy from Chhapra and the JD(U) president Sharad Yadav from Madhepura. He became the railway minister in the UPA Government. Later, he gave up the Madhepura seat.
Yadav banned plastic cups from being used to serve tea at railway stations and ordered that they be replaced by kulhars (earthen cups), to generate more employment in rural areas. Later, he also said that he had plans to introduce buttermilk and khādī. In June 2004, he announced that he would get on the railway himself to inspect its problems and went on to board the Patna railway station at midnight.
When he took over, the Indian Railways was a loss-making organization. In the 4 years under his leadership, it made a cumulative total profit of Rs. 25,000 crores (US $5.2 billion).
He left passenger fares untouched and found several other profitable sources of revenue for the Railways. He also improved on his first year's performance by stating a profit of 14,000 crores with decreased freight and unchanged passenger fares in 2006. Then, in the 2007 budget, he increased the profit level to 20,000 crores with the introduction of cushion seats in all unreserved compartments. In 2008, profits were 25,000 crores (equals US $6.25 billion @ $1~Rs.40)
Well known schools of management were interested in Yadav's leadership in managing the turnaround (with more or less the same IAS officers & the same workforce who worked under the previous ministers). He went to and addressed over a hundred students from Harvard, Wharton and others in Hindi. He has received invitations from 8 Ivy League schools for lectures. The turnaround of the Indian Railways is now being studied by the students of the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. Prof G. Raghuram, a faculty member, IIM-A, has already conducted a detailed study on the Railways turnaround.
In August 2008, CNN-IBN alleged that Yadav had misused his position as the Union Railway Minister to help his relatives acquire land. Earlier Railway ministers and his political opponents Mamata Banerjee & Nitish Kumar have raised doubts over Lalu's achievements.
Read more about this topic: Lalu Prasad Yadav
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