Suresh Kumar Assumes Additional Charge As Coal India Chairman
Suresh Kumar assumes the role of chairman and managing director at Coal India.
Senior bureaucrat Suresh Kumar today assumed the additional charge as chairman and managing director of state-owned Coal India Ltd.
Kumar, additional secretary with the coal ministry, has taken over from Central Coalfields Ltd. CMD Gopal Singh, who was appointed as interim chairman of the world’s largest coal miner in September last year.
“Ministry of Coal...has entrusted the additional charge of CMD, CIL to Suresh Kumar, Additional Secretary, MoC (Ministry of Coal). He has assumed the additional charge as CMD, CIL with effect from April 23, 2018,” Coal India said in a filing to the BSE.
Singh had succeeded Sutirtha Bhattacharya who retired from the post of Coal India CMD on August 31, 2017.
Coal Secretary Susheel Kumar had earlier said that “the process of approval (of full-time chairman) is on...I am not aware of the timelines.” The government had last year began the hunt for a full-time Coal India CMD and invited applications from professionals from PSUs as well as the private sector.
While inviting applications through an advertisement, the government had said “the applicants may submit their applications to the Ministry of Coal.”
The government headhunter PESB had earlier suggested that the centre may choose an appropriate course of action for selection of the CMD for Coal India as it did not find any of the six candidates interviewed fit for the top post.
Coal India accounts for over 80 percent of domestic coal production.