It’s a kind of role reversal. The Indian Railways, which developed as a legacy of the British Raj, is now inspiring awe from the UK railways minister himself. “The most remarkable thing about the Indian railways is the financial turnaround it has achieved over the past few years. Given the size of the IR operations, this is amazing,” UK railways minister Tom Harris told.
Indian railways minister Lalu Prasad Yadav said while presenting the Rail Budget 2008-09, that the railways achieved a cash surplus of around Rs 25,000 crores by end of financial year 2007-08. Keen to get a share in the pie of the growing Indian Railways, which has many large-scale projects planned, the UK railways minister is pushing the envelope for the private British rail companies who want to do business here.