Journalism of Courage
Coal India chairman S Narsing Rao is likely to resign and take up a major bureaucratic assignment in the newly formed Telangana state.
While his impending resignation, expected within next two weeks, may put the world’s biggest coal miner into trouble as it continue to grapple with production constraints, Telangana Rashtra Samithi chief K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) is “very keen” that Rao expressly joins the state government as either as KCR’s principal secretary or at least the chief secretary.
“Well, I am considering to take up a new assignment in Telangana. It is a new state and there is a huge scope to do lot of things,” Rao told The Indian Express over telephone from Hyderabad.
He is currently on a 15-day leave and may formally quit once he returns to Kolkata, where Coal India is headquartered.
Coincidentally, Narsing Rao hails from Medak, the home district of KCR.
A Coal India official said that Rao even accompanied KCR to meet Andhra Pradesh Governor ESL Narasimhan on the issue of cadre allocation.
Refusing to divulge as to in which capacity would he join the Telangana government, Rao, however, indicated that “it would be a fairly senior position”.
However, how KCR manages to help Rao move out of Coal India remains to be seen. Especially because Coal India is passing through trying times as its annual output for FY14 is down by over 15 million tones and new projects are non-functional owing to lack of green clearances and land acquisition issues.
A 1986-batch IAS officer from the Andhra Pradesh cadre, Narsing Rao took over as Coal India CMD in April, 2012, with a five-year tenure. Before joining Coal India, Rao worked as CMD of Singareni Collieries.
