An alumnus of Presidency College and an IAS of the 1985 Andhra cadre, Sutirtha Bhattacharya, chairman of Singareni Collieries Company (SCCL) is set for his second, and probably final stint in Kolkata. On Tuesday, the Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) proposed his name as the next chairman of Kolkata-headquartered Coal India.

CIL, the national miner with a ₹70,000-crore turnover, was headless since May when S Narsing Rao quit to become the principal secretary to Chief Minister of Telangana.

While Bhattacharya’s appointment is yet to be confirmed, the 57-year-old says he “will be happy, if selected, to lead CIL” to higher growth trajectories.

But the job is easier said than done.

For that, CIL will need to emulate the success of SCCL in underground mining.

But to meet the country’s increasing demand for fuel, he has to focus on big opencast mining projects that produce three times more coal.

That means he has to negotiate the hurdles of land acquisition, law and order, and green clearance.

Hurdles And, even if he succeeds in overcoming these hurdles, there is no guarantee that the coal will reach the power plants because of poor connectivity.

Till October, production grew 6.6 per cent. But due to inadequate rail capacities, off-take grew only 3.6 per cent.

Three rail projects, totalling nearly 300 km, were planned decades ago to help extract 300 mt more coal every year. One is expected to be complete in 2017, the rest are still in the drawing board stage.

That is not all. Due to a policy reversal by the Modi government on highly remunerative e-auction sales, CIL’s profit is on a decline.

But Bhattacharya says he is “ready to face the challenges”.

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