Governments do not function on the wishes of bureaucrats, and officials should readily implement the policies that ministers decide on, Union minister Nitin Gadkari said on Tuesday, ANI reported.

“I always tell the officers [bureaucrats] that the government will not work according to what you say,” Gadkari said. “...You only have to say ‘yes sir’. You have to implement whatever we [ministers] are saying. The government will work according to us.”

The Union minister for road transport and highways made the remarks at an event at the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences at Nashik.

Gadkari also said that no law should come in the way of the welfare of poor citizens. “...If such a law has to be broken even ten times, we should not hesitate, this is what Mahatma Gandhi said,” he said.

The minister said that many of the districts identified as “aspirational districts” by the NITI Aayog are dominated by Adivasis. He said that the Adivasis face poverty and unemployment, but laws impede the development of these regions.

“In the [Adivasi-dominated] Gadchiroli district, one cannot build dams, roads or bridges,” Gadkari said. “Industries are stopped from being set up, and there is no scope for mining. Meanwhile, the Adivasis suffer due to poverty, starvation and unemployment.”