New Delhi: Lalu prasad Yadav continue to be a study subject for the B-School students. In the railway budget presented today, he put forward a stunning statistic that Indian Railways has recorded profits of Rs 25,000 crore ($6.25 billion) in 2007-08.

The cash surplus of the Railways rose from Rs 9,000 crore in 2005 to Rs 14,000 crore in 2006 to Rs 20,000 crore in 2007. In 2007-08, it is Rs 25,000 crore, and the government department has also announced a dividend of Rs 4,218 crore to the government.

"Indian Railways is a Government Department. However, we take pride in the fact that our achievement, on the benchmark of net surplus before dividend, makes us better than most of the Fortune 500 companies in the world," Yadav said.

The way of achieving this turnaround was mesmerizing. According to Yadav, for example, instead of increasing passenger fares, the department increased the length of passenger trains. "During 2004-05 to 2007-08, we added 3000 additional coaches thereby earning an additional Rs. 2000 crore," said Yadav.