Four in race for CMDs post at Coal India

KOLKATA: The bosses of four subsidiaries of Coal India are in the race to bag the top job in the mother company, as Sutirtha Bhattacharya, chairman-cum-managing director (CMD) of Coal India, heads towards retirement in August this year. 

 

According to sources, Shri R R Mishra, CMD of Western Coalfields; Shri A K Jha, CMD of Mahanadi Coalfields; Shri Gopal Singh, CMD of Central Coalfields and Shri Shekhar Saran, chairman of the Central Mine Planning & Design Institute, have applied for the new position. The source said there could be external candidates (non-Coal India) as well. 

 

Among the internal candidates, all are non-IAS personnel and belong to the technical field except Mishra, who is from human resources. “Although PESB has been preferring candidates from the technical arena, an exception was made in case of Partha S Bhattacharya, who was from finance background”, a company official said. 

 

Another company source said that over the years, preference had been given to the candidates from the technical field but recently the government has been preferring IAS cadres.