Penny wise

That Finance Minister P Chidambaram is punctilious is well known to all his cabinet colleagues. But in the just-concluded Parliament session, one got a glimpse of how this attitude has seeped into North Block as well. Rajya Sabha MP Ram Jethmalani asked the Finance Ministry if the outstanding amount of direct taxes in the country on April 1, 2006, was estimated at Rs 1,17,000 crore. In his reply, Minister of State S S Palanimanickam wrote an emphatic “No”, leading all to believe Jethmalani’s estimate was way off the mark. But he wasn’t —outstanding taxes stood at Rs 1,16,766 crore. One can argue that a smoothly functioning finance ministry should account for every penny, but the minister’s reply to the second part of Jethmalani’s question belied all that. Asked if “only“ Rs 11,700 crore was the recovery target from these outstanding dues for this financial year, the ministry strangely agreed—when the actual target is higher at Rs 11,741 crore.

Lalubhai, MBA

After IIM-Ahmedabad and the HEC School of Management, it is now a Paris-based savant who wants to chronicle the Indian Railways' stunning turnaround story. Rail Bhavan is abuzz with an offer made by management guru Pramod Batra to write a book on Railways Minister Lalu Prasad. Sources say Batra, who has more than a dozen motivational books to his credit, is keen to profile Yadav for his next book, tentatively titled Simple Management Wisdom of Professor Lalu Ji, a case study on how he is transforming the Indian Railways using elementary management ideas. While the ministry is yet to respond to the proposal, sources say that Lalu himself is not averse to the idea. “When you can have toys, toffees and rakhis modelled on Laluji, what's wrong with somebody writing a book on him?” asks a Yadav loyalist.

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