Digby Jones tells us that the sum of £250bn is not a great deal to spend on upgrading the transport system of the world's fourth largest economy (18 June, page 14).
This may be true, but then India is a very large place. From the context of his remarks, I think Jones was trying to make a point about the UK, which, according to the CIA World Factbook for 2003 is the world's seventh largest economy ($1520bn) behind the USA ($10,400bn), China ($5700bn), Japan ($3550bn), India ($2660bn), Germany ($2184bn) and France ($1540bn). Unless, of course, he meant per capita GDP, in which case we're ranked 23rd, just ahead of the Falkland Islands. Why do we delude ourselves?

Postscript

Roger Davison, via email