Cost cutting - I

It’s not just Cabinet ministers, or those with Cabinet rank (Nandan Nilekani has moved from the Oberoi Hotel to the more austere India International Centre) who are practising austerity. The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation is in cost-cutting mode as well. For the past few weeks, its ‘yellow line’, from Jahangirpuri to Central Secretariat, has most of its lights switched off during the day. And, at an ONGC press conference, someone asked Chairman R S Sharma about austerity drives; he said the company had thought twice about holding the conference at the Oberoi Hotel but then decided to go for it.