Coal news and updates

Appoint CIL chief only through PESB route: PMO

Coal minister Piyush Goyal’s game plan to directly appoint a chairman for Coal India (CIL), rather than go through interviews by the Public Enterprise Selection Board, has boomeranged with the Prime Minister’s Office directing that a Search-cum-Selection Committee be formed to choose the candidate.

The PMO conveyed that the appointment process should be conducted through the PESB and retained its chairman as the head of the committee. The panel, besides other PESB members, would have coal secretary as a selector rather than just assisting, as he or she does during PESB selection process.

At a press conference to mark 100 days of the NDA government, Goyal had said the government would look to appoint a CIL chief breaking away from the tradition of the PESB making the selection.

The new chairman of CIL has a huge responsibility coming his way as the Supreme Court has cancelled 214 blocks allowing the government to hold auctions or give them to the state-run miner after the existing private companies wrap up their operations in six months.

Sources said PMO declined to raise the current pay band of Rs 80,000-Rs 1,25,000 to lure non-government executives but agreed to open the slot for private sector professionals. In April 2013, UPA government stopped shortlisting of applicants from state PSUs and private sector permitted since April 2008.

Goyal was pushing for a larger talent pool available in the private sector to enable the selection process of to be more vibrant and to turn around fortunes at the world’s largest coal producer.

The Search-Cum-Selection Committee on September 19 directed government headhunter PESB to invite executives from private sector as well as state PSUs to apply along with Central PSU executives and government officials.

The Committee opened the process for executives from unlisted companies as well but modified the eligibility norm by restricting it only to directors and CEOs and raising the minimum corporate annual turnover threshold.

“Private sector executives must be working as whole time Director/President/CEO in a listed company whose average annual turnover during the last three financial years (2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14) was at least Rs 5,000 crore,” says the PESB circular.

For executives from unlisted companies, it added a clause that the average annual turnover of the group to which it belongs should be at least Rs 10,000 crore and the holding company or at least one of the subsidiaries of the group should be listed on a stock exchange.

Before April 2103, any private sector professional, irrespective of his position, could apply for a director level position provided his company’s annual turnover was Rs 100 crore and for a CMD post if the turnover was Rs 500 crore and above. The committee has also retained the existing tenure limit of “five years or up to the date of superannuation, whichever is earlier”.

The minister, said sources, favoured a fixed tenure, irrespective of the retirement age, for long term stability.

CIL is without a full-time chairman since end-May when S Narsing Rao resigned. Additional secretary for coal AK Dubey is officiating as CMD till a full-time chief executive is appointed. The miner, which accounts for over 80 per cent of domestic coal output, is drawing flak for repeatedly missing production targets.

Source: The Indian Express