Under Modi’s watch

Two important resource-rich public sector undertakings are on the radar of the government–the National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) and the Directorate-General of Hydrocarbons (DGH). The NMDC is idle without a permanent chairman, though Gopal Singh was selected by the Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) in July 2015 but there was no initiative from the Prime Minister’s Office to clear his name. At the same time, there were also rumours about the clandestine manner in which he was selected. Sources disclosed that the PMO’s silence is possibly because it was aware about the modus operandi of the then PESB chairman. It is now learnt that the Ministry of Steel has scrapped the selection panel and a search committee has been constituted to select a new and competent candidate. Meanwhile in the DGH, the post of DG was vacant for a long time. Finally, Atanu Chakraborty, a 1985-batch IAS officer of the Gujarat cadre, has been appointed. He is at present working as Managing Director of the Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation Ltd. Chakraborty has served in the districts of Vadodara, Sabarkantha and was Collector of Amreli district. In Gandhinagar, he has served in the Finance, Home, Tribal Development and Labour Departments. He has also worked as Principal Secretary (Economic Affairs), Finance Department, Gujarat. Modi is clearly selecting the heads of PSUs very carefully. g
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