Despite conflicts, we used the bureaucracy’s experience to implement policies: Shailaja

Governments have relied on the bureaucracy’s experience in governance to implement their policies, and Kerala followed the same path, former Kerala Health Minister, K.K. Shailaja, said here on Wednesday.

Speaking at the launch of the Tamil translation of her book My Life as a Comrade: The Story of an Extraordinary Politician and the World that Shaped Her, Ms. Shailaja said that in this aspect, she followed Lenin’s words, uttered soon after the Russian Revolution, that the bureaucracy could not be dismissed because they had experience, and instead “we should think how to use that experience to implement our policies”.

“The IAS officers have long-term experience but the Ministers are new. They don’t know anything about non-communicable diseases or the health care system. I had to study all these,” she said during a conversation with Ranvir Shah of Prakriti Foundation.

She recalled her association with former Health Secretary of Kerala Rajeev Sadanandan, and how they worked around their differences and other obstacles to implement the e-Health Project in Kerala.

Sharing her thoughts on working with the bureaucracy, Nalini Krishnan, another public health crusader, said the implementation of any programme hinged on the bureaucrat occupying the post. Moreover, the bureaucracy did not think that non-governmental organisations had a place in their scheme of things. However, over the years since the inception of REACH (Resource Group for Education and Advocacy for Community Health), the organisation that Dr. Nalini Krishnan co-founded to partner the government in the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme, perceptions have changed after “a lot of relationship building”.

During the hour-long conversation, Ms. Shailaja shared several anecdotes from her ministerial days, including the tumultuous COVID-19 pandemic days and the vulnerabilities that drove Kerala’s policy towards adopting the containment method.

She shared her department’s push to bring down Kerala’s infant mortality from 12 per 1,000 live births to five, and how the whole healthcare mechanism was mobilised towards this goal.

Reforms such as transformation of Primary Health Centres into Family Health Centres were also highlighted in the book.

K. Balakrishnan, former State secretary of CPI(M), Tamil Nadu, and Justice Prabha Sridevan, former judge, Madras High Court, also spoke. Translated by T.A. Srinivasan, the Tamil title, Makkalin Thozhar, is brought out by Kalachuvadu Publications.