Full time Chairman for Damodar Valley Corporation(DVC)
HT Newspaper
Nov.30 2009

With the recent removal of Chairman/DVC, there is a vacuum at the top since the DVC Board has only one Full Time Member viz Chairman and two Part Time Members (Secretary/Energy from West Bengal and Jharkhand). For this reason, it is not practically feasible to manage the DVC on a dual charge basis. Earlier, the Additional Secretary/Power Sh.G.B.Pradhan had been given the dual charge of Chairman and this arrangement was practically not workable. Now it is understood that Govt. is considering to give dual charge to some official in the Ministry of Power who would perform the duty of Chairman/DVC in addition to his own duty.

The AIPEF appeals for the intervention of Cabinet Secretary to take up the matter with the Rajasthan Govt. to get Sh.S.Pandey relieved, since his selection as the number one candidate for the post of Chairman/DVC is still very much valid and can be implemented immediately.

The AIPEF wishes to stress that in case the selection process is again started ab-initio, precious time of the order of 8-12 months would be lost. Considering that the DVC is presently executing thermal power projects of 5200 MW, all of which, without exception are suffering huge time overrun, it was all the more necessary to have a person with hands on experience in the power sector and power projects and to have insisted upon Rajasthan Govt. to relieve Sh.Pandey.

The refusal of Rajasthan Govt. amounts to making a mockery of the entire selection process and indeed of the ACC itself. Such a breakdown of the discipline/ rules must not be permitted particularly at the level of the Cabinet Secretariat and DOPT.

There is no dispute that the power sector in Rajasthan and particularly the power projects have an extremely good track record of timely and economic execution of construction works. The Rajasthan Genco is already headed by a dynamic MD who has delivered the goods. Sh.S.Pandey at this stage is not directly connected with the execution of thermal projects in Rajasthan whereas earlier he was posted as Chairman/RVPNL & Power Utilities and directly in line with the construction activity. By contrast the track record of DVC is precisely the opposite as compared to Rajasthan. There was an extremely urgent need to replicate the dynamism of Rajasthan in DVC so as to overcome the inertia and delays that have plagued each and every thermal project of DVC. It is well known that Chandrapura unit-7 is three years delayed and has missed the deadline of 31.08.2009 under the 100 days action plan of Ministry of Power. This unit is still nowhere near COD as the coal handling equipment is incomplete. The delay in execution of DVC projects has further seriously compromised the power supply to Delhi for the Commonwealth Games and judging by the present state of affairs, the 2x500 MW units at Mejia stage-2 would almost certainly miss the deadline of the games.

It needs to be stressed again that stop gap arrangement of dual charge in case of Chairman/DVC would be a gross injustice to the organization as well as a set back to the national interest.