The Public Enterprises Selection Board may hold an interview for selecting the new Chairman of Coal India Ltd on November 18, according to sources.
Though official communications are yet to be issued, the race may be limited to nearly half a dozen directors of the country’s three Government-run coal and lignite companies.
Sutirtha Bhattacharya, an Andhra Pradesh cadre IAS officer of the 1985 batch, and chairman of Singareni Collieries Company Ltd (SCCL), is the frontrunnerfor the job.
A smaller peer of Coal India, SCCL extracts around 55 million tonnes (mt) of fuel a year from reserves in Telangana.
If selected, Bhattacharya will succeed S Narsing Rao. Also an Andhra-cadre IAS officer and former CMD of SCCL, Rao quit Coal India in May this year to become the Principal Secretary of Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao.
Bhattacharya may have to face a competition from CIL’s director technical N Kumar.
A mining engineer, Kumar is instrumental for pushing the company’s production by 17.5 mt (nearly seven per cent), adequate to fuel 3,500 MW electricity generation capacities, so far this year.