Did his experience in quelling union strikes land him the top job that some call plum, others unenviable? Narsing Rao, who will be assuming charge as the new chairman of Coal India Limited (CIL) by the end of this month, has successfully brought down the number of worker strikes during his period at Singareni, where 70,000 workers operate the mines.
Rao will be leading Coal India at a time when the firm is unlikely to meet even its scaled down production target of 440 mt for the current year (revised from 452 mt set earlier).In order to meet the directive from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to ensure supply for 20 years to power plants of 50,000 MW that would be commissioned by March 2015, Coal India has to produce an additional 220 mt by then.Rao believes that India’s problem of low coal production can be overcome with a little help from the government and some initiatives from the industry.
Currently Chairman and Managing Director of the state-run Singareni Collieries Co Ltd, Rao is set to take over from Zohra Chatterji, an Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Coal.Chatterji has been acting chairman of the world’s largest coal producer since the beginning of February after the previous acting Chairman, NC Jha retired on 31 January.
CIL has not had a full-time CMD since March 2011.An officer from the Indian Administrative Service from the 1986 batch, Rao is not a newcomer to Coal India as he had served as a director on its board from February 2007 to March 2008.
The new Chairman has the advantage of strong mineral and financial resources at his command.The challenge will be formulating a robust strategy and ensuring implementation.
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