Bhubaneswar, March 20: Co-operation minister Damodar Rout today courted controversy when he expressed "helpless before the bureaucracy" and said he was "unable to run sugar mills in the state despite his best efforts".

Replying to an adjournment motion, Rout today said in the Assembly: "I have the required intelligence to run a department. The people are ready to take up the liabilities of the Nayagarh sugar factor, but for the past six months, nothing has been done in this regard."

He recalled how he did well in all the departments he had run earlier. "I am surprised at the Opposition leaders describing me as an efficient minister. I am really ashamed to hear all this (such praises)," he said.

The minister said: "I am a helpless and inefficient minister. The sugar factories are being closed down despite I being a minister and heading the department."

He further said: "There should not be any contradictory statements on my ability. If I were an able minister, I could have run the sugar mills properly." Rout said: "In the southern states, the co-operatives are doing well. Their poverty has been reduced to a great extent. But, the poverty ratio has not gone down."

The minister said the Bargarh sugar factory would shortly be made functional. "The factory was closed down following a notice by the pollution department. We will shortly get a clearance from the central pollution department," said an official.

Rout had earlier courted controversy by calling himself a junior minister. "There are many senior ministers. I may be senior in age but not senior in the ministry," he had said.