Ahmedabad: Union Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav's three-hour class with 90 students and faculty members of IIM-A, explaining to them of how he achieved the turnaround of Indian Railways (IR) was hailed by students as a great "learning experience".
A student of IIM-A Lokesh Badhiar said Yadav's class was a learning experience and he turned out to be a very good teacher.
"What I liked about him was his ability to extract maximum benefits to turn the IR into a profit making entity," he said.
Another student Akshat Khare said he was surprised by Yadav's insight on the issue and the way he mixed it up with witty comments.
"His down-to-earth approach was the one thing which I admire," he said adding that this class was different from the others classes at IIM-A as it had been a two-way communication.
However, for most of them, Lalu's lecture in his inimitable rustic style sent them into guffaws.
"We did not realise how the three hours passed. He had all of us in raptures," said Akshat Khare.
Another student, Swati Nigam said it was a very interesting lecture full of very good one-liners like linking railway to "Jersey Cow".
"I thought railway was a lethargic organisation but this man has changed my impression. What I like about him was he was open to suggestions", said Krishna Tomande.
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Mr Prasad took questions from the audience after he delivered a lecture on 'Change and Transformation in Indian Railway' at an auditorium.
There too, he deftly handled questions with ease. To a questioner, who asked him about IIM's anti reservation stand, he said, "Today’s agenda is not reservation. Today we will talk of Railway achievements."
When queried about why nothing much has been done to improve the conditions in Ahmedabad's railway stations, he said, "Mr Modi (Chief Minister) has not been taking too much interest in Railway-related matters."
On why he could not affect a similar turnaround in Bihar, he said he was not allowed to work. "Bakri ke tarah gala dabaya tha.(our throat was pressed like one does it to a goat)"
IIM-A professor G Raghuram, who had written a paper on turnaround of IR, said this is a historic first interactive session for the institute as the person, who turnaround the IR, had himself explained to students about how he did it.
When he was asked by Prof Raghuram to sit and address the students, the Minister quipped, "Sikhane aaye hain toh thodi na baithke bolenge," (I have come to teach, so how can I sit and deliver my talk) sending everyone into peals of laughter.
However, Raghuram said, "The session turned out to be very good and we learnt lot of things from the case study."
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