NEWDELHI: Siddarth Behuria, the former Telecom Secretary who was arrested along with Telecom Minister A Raja in the Rs 1.76 lakh crore 2G spectrum scam comes from a family of high profile bureaucrats in Orissa.
Siddarth who belongs to the 1973 Indian Administrative Service batch is the eldest of the Behuria siblings. He had joined Department of Telecom as the secretary from January 1,2008.
His two younger brothers are also counted among the top policy makers in the country. They are Sarthak Behuria who once headed the state-run Indian Oil Corporation and Sutanu Behuria, fertilizer secretary in the Union Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizer that is headed by DMK’s M K Alagiri.
Another high profile person in the Behuria household is Sanjay Behuria, a well known name in global banking. According to family sources, their father Nrusingha Behuria was a civil servant in the state government and was later conferred IAS. Behuria’s family hails from Jajpur district in Orissa.
In his defence, Siddarth has maintained that he had merely implemented a decision taken by Raja before he became the DoT Secretary. A senior bureaucrat is puzzled as to why Behuria succumbed to implement the Telecom Minister’s decision. “As top policy makers we often explain, differ and oppose stand taken by ministers,” a senior bureaucrat told Express.
Siddharth who was Joint Secretary in the Department of Industries & Development and had successfully implemented the new industrial policy during the P V Narasimha Rao Government, had worked in Environment Ministry when Raja was Union Environment Minister from 2005-07. As soon as DS Mathur resigned on Dec 31 and another technocrat Manju Madhavan retired prematurely, Raja got Siddharth inducted as Telecom Secretary.
Sutanu Behuria, (youngest of Behuria brothers) joined the IAS in 1976 (Himachal Pradesh cadre), is admired by several colleagues in the service. A former PSU chairman remembers how bright and upright Sutanu was when he served as an economic adviser in the rank of additional secretary and later as special secretary in the Commerce Ministry. Currently he is engaged in thrashing out issues in the fertilizer sector even as his political boss Alagiri is conspicuously absent.
Sarthak Behuria who is credited for transforming IOC into a Navaratna, with a turnover of $62.3 billion in 2008-09 was the top contender for heading the Petronet LNG, Joint Venture by the Government of India to import LNG. However, Ashok Balyan pipped Sarthak and other contenders for the post of Chairman-Managing Director. He is also a contender for the post of independent director in the Jet Airways. An alumnus of St Stephen’s College, New Delhi, and Indian Institute of Management-Ahmadabad, Behuria joined Burmah Shell in 1973. Working across the country in various verticals of the country’s largest lender-State Bank of India since 1978, Sanjay Behuria handled cross border loan transactions in all major currencies with an international flavour at Bahrain as senior management and treasury dealer. After two years stint as senior dealer at Oman International Bank as senior dealer from 1993-1995, he was vice president, treasury at Riyadh Bank in Saudi Arabia for next eight years.
Working as a self-based consultant in the US, Sanjay last year has contributed to three project reports while undertaking consulting contracts - Microlending for Nedbank, Namibia, savings product development for ESAF project in Palestine and Financial Inclusion Strategic Plan for The Ratnakar Bank in Maharashtra.
