Sutirtha appointed Coal India CMD

HYDERABAD: The Appointments Committee of Cabinet (ACC) headed by Prime Minister NarendraModi on Thursday cleared the name of SutirthaBhattacharya for appointment as the next chairman and managing director of Coal India Limited (CIL). The Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) had proposed his name to head India’s biggest Maharatna company a month ago. The 1985 batch IAS officer of Andhra Pradesh cadre is likely to take charge in early January.
“This is a great opportunity for me to strive for the energy security of the country. My immediate targets include increasing coal production and ensuring enough coal to the energy requirements of the country,” Bhattacharya told TOI after ACC’s approval to his appointment.
He is at present heading Singareni Collieries Company Limited, the biggest coal company after CIL, since June 1, 2012. He will be first IAS officer to head the CIL with all-round experience in industry, power, infrastructure and coal departments. He served as principal secretary of infrastructure and investment, energy, industries departments in Andhra Pradesh government. He also headed the AP Transco before taking over the energy department. He has earlier served in urban development, power, agriculture and land revenue departments of the Andhra Pradesh government.
Bhattacharya, a physics graduate from Presidency College of Kolkata, was an insurance officer before joining the IAS. Bhattacharya will now have to quit the IAS.
CIL has been without a full-time chairman and managing director for almost six months now. The last CMD S Narsing Rao resigned from the post in May this year to join as principal secretary to Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao.
Analysts say that Bhattacharya's job is cut out for him. Not only will he have to focus on increased production but also usher in privatisation in the sector. Coal production has become a major bottleneck in the country although India sits on billions of tons of reserves of what is called the black diamond. Ironically coal imports have been a major guzzler of scarce forex in the last few years.