“No one is indispensible,” was the perfect parting shot of the country’s largest power generator NTPC’s Chairman and Managing Director Arup Roy Choudhury as he demitted office on Monday after five years at the helm.

‘Dynamic’ was what Minister for State (Independent Charge) of Power Piyush Goyal called Choudhury just a few days back. And with two years of service left, Choudhury was denied an extension as per the recent policy of the government of not renewing the tenures of public sector unit heads appointed by the previous Government.

However, unlike in the case of SAIL, where charge was handed over to the Steel Secretary Rakesh Singh, NTPC will be headed in the interim by its own employee.

AK Jha, Director (Technical), the senior most director in the company will head the company in the interim till a permanent replacement is found. The suggestion to hand over charge to Jha, was given by Choudhury, people in the know of the development said.

A search committee, to be constituted by the Power Secretary Pradeep Kumar Pujari, will now look for a replacement.

Choudhury was the youngest chairman of a public sector unit when he was appointed Chairman and Managing Director of NBCC in 2001. He was 44 then.

Now, the power sector veteran wants to take up teaching roles in the country’s leading management and engineering institutions.

Despite ‘plenty’ of offers from the private sector, Choudhury is not keen on taking up anything more than an advisory role. As he has not been granted an extension, Choudhury can if he wishes to join the private sector immediately since a cooling off period is not required.

While he said work at NTPC remains to be done, under Choudhury, NTPC added a generation capacity of 15,235 MW since September 1, 2010.

The company has also been able to convince the Government to remove power generated from plants more than 25 years old from the existing power purchase agreements.

This power will now be bundled with solar power to bring down rates.

For example, NTPC’s Singrauli plant’s 3,000 MW will be bundled with solar power at a tariff of around ₹3.20 a unit, sources said.

Just days before his exit, Choudhury also oversaw NTPC achieve its highest daily generation at 733.12 million units.

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