Lalu's comments on pvt firms do not go well with India Inc

NEW DELHI: New FICCI President Harsh Pati Singhania disagreed with observation of Railway Minister Lalu Prasad that the private sector firms take "anti-people" measures for their financial turnaround.

"I don't want to debate with the minister...but on an independent basis, I don't think private sector is anti-people," FICCI chief told the media.

In his Budget Speech on February 13, Prasad had said that the Railways has improved its balance-sheet without increasing prices or retrenching workforce unlike the private sector.

"The transformation of the Railways is fundamentally different from the financial turnaround witnessed in the private sector companies.

"While private companies resort to anti-people measures like increase in prices, retrenchment of employees and lockouts, Railways has kept the human aspect as the central focus and achieved an extraordinary feat without putting any extra burden on the common man or the employees," Prasad said.

Singhania said the Railways did increase the freight charges, even though there were no across-the-board announcements.

"While over the years, it seems that freight rates have not been increased, there has been a fair amount of increase in freight rates at least for business because of different classification," he said.