Outsourcing in the Railways

The Indian Railways8217; top bureaucracy is a harried lot these days. Every now and then, senior officials at Rail Bhavan receive notes marked to them by Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav8217;s OSD Sudhir Kumar seeking some technical detail or the other on the way things work in the Railways. Initially clueless about the reason for such general queries, officials have now realised that the information being solicited is essentially being collected to be included in Kumar8217;s forthcoming book8212;tentatively titled From Bankruptcy to Billions8212;in which the OSD is planning to further tom-tom the Railways8217; turnaround story in addition to penning an ode to his minister. But this also means that many directorates are nowadays spending more time collecting material of archival value than concentrating on matters of immediate interest.