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Mission impossible?

Ministerial resignations while assuming responsibility for railway mishaps ~ or in the present instance, at the time of writing an…

Mission impossible?

(Photo: SNS)

Ministerial resignations while assuming responsibility for railway mishaps ~ or in the present instance, at the time of writing an offer to quit ~ have an essentially political relevance.

Not necessarily a negative fall-out though: Lal Bhadur Shastri went on to become a highlyrevered prime minister and Nitish Kumar is now a chief minister who some say had nursed prime ministerial aspirations. Suresh Prabhu is essentially a technocrat but has played “the game” long enough to hope that even if Narendra Modi does accept his resignation he will be accommodated elsewhere, a ministerial re-jig is said to be in the offing.

The departure of the Chairman of the Railway Board might have more direct impact on the working of a deficient system, but AK Mittal was on an extension and the buzz is that there was an element of protest to his action; for though he too accepted the onus for the recent smashes, he was unhappy with the action taken against senior officials.

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And so the focus on the rejuvenation of a near-collapsing system shifts to Ashwani Lohani ~ who had some months ago declared the railways his first love, has a somewhat chequered career on the tracks, but had always wished he would land the job with which he has just been entrusted.

The mechanical engineer who has displayed man-management skills in addition to his professional expertise is popularly known as the “turnaround man” ~ but that would probably relate more to the assignments he has handled rather than any outstanding success at them.

True that it was a tall order to get a bureaucracy-shackled ITDC to ensure the country exploited its vast tourism potential, even more demanding was leading Air India’s recovery after Praful Patel’s shenanigans. Still, restoring credibility to the railways would be, at least by comparison, a “mission impossible”.

Lohani is fully aware of his task: shortly before he got his new assignment he tweeted “the tragic railway disaster (Muzaffarnagar) is a glaring symptom of the crying need for structural and process reforms cutting across hierarchies down to the ground level that this great organisaton needs, along with a genuine focus on HR”.

That diagnosis may be spot-on, administering the remedy could prove problematic. It is not as though the railways have been devoid of professionalism, the pitfalls have arisen when trying to cater to operational requirements and still serve political purposes.

The merger of the railway and general budgets has not diluted the “political demands” on the system. One thing which need not trouble Lohani too much is the outpouring from Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala who offers unsolicited opinion on everything ~ there were accidents even when Madhavrao Scindia played his Sunday cricket at the Karnail Singh stadium in the Capital.

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