Past Imperfect: New railway minister Dinesh Trivedi aired possibly the harshest comment against bureaucrats

IT’S a must-know incident for railway babus. Newly-appointed Union railway minister Dinesh Trivedi is definitely a doer, but he is also the man who aired one of the harshest comments against bureaucrats.

Exactly a year ago, Trivedi, then a minister of state for health called Indian bureaucrats “ineffective” adding that college kids would run the health ministry better than the bureaucrats. The minister had a massive problem with then health secretary health secretary K Sujatha Rao over sanctioning of a Rs 140-crore health portal.

“Why do we have to wait for the CBI to unearth them (about scams like Medical Council of India)? Where is the accountability for bureaucracy? Politicians are accountable as they have to go back to the people,” Trivedi told a news channel then.

Trivedi further said that bureaucrats are not innovative, and that’s a major roadblock. “They don’t understand technology. Young people fresh out of college would be able to run the health ministry better that these bureaucrats,” he said.

Then health secretary Sujatha Rao countered the charges and said that Indian bureaucracy “was among the most scrutinized in the world”.

Born in 1950 in New Delhi, Trivedi is a B Com from St. Xavier College, Calcutta University and an MBA from University of Texas, USA. In 1990, he was first elected to Rajya Sabha, and in 2002, he was re-elected to the Rajya Sabha and got nominated to Panel of Vice Chairmen, Rajya Sabha.

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