New Delhi, May 6: Normally, the factors behind appointment and extension of key officials in public sector undertakings (PSUs) are kept under wraps and only unattributable nuggets of information taken out to the open. That is also true for power PSUs.

However, ever since the late evening appointment of R S Sharma as the new CMD of NTPC last week, the culture of reticence seems to be evaporating. Sharma was till a few weeks ago the second most favoured candidate for the company’s top post, with director (operations) Chandan Roy being the frontrunner and also the possibility of the then CMD getting an extension. Till April 30, the day on which the existing CMD retired, several permutations and combinations were doing the rounds. However, Sharma’s appointment as CMD that evening ended all speculation, the only remaining question being Roy’s next move.

A few days later — last Sunday — minister of state for power Jairam Ramesh gave a closed door “pep talk” to some 140-odd top and middle-level officials of NTPC. He began by defining the new CMD’s role, stressing that it had more to do with vision building and morale lifting within the organisation than with spending time in Planning Commission and power ministry review meetings. He also expressed the hope that the next CMD of NTPC would not be appointed at six in the evening.

While Roy, who was present at the meeting along with Sharma, still continues to be with NTPC, there is another power PSU — Power Grid Corporation Ltd (PGCL) — that is to have a new CMD. Again, there is a “front runner” to take over from current CMD R P Singh, who has been at the helm of PGCL for close to a decade now and has decided to move on. Singh, who is scheduled to retire on July 31, wanted to “leave” the organisation on March 31, 2008.

Today again, the not-so-discrete statements of the CMD, who is on extension, minister Ramesh and power secretary Anil Razdan made it clear that all is not well at PGCL either. At a meeting called to discuss PowerGrid’s newly acquired navratna status, Ramesh first congratulated Singh for building the organisation and then told him that if he wished to move on, he should do so with a clean break — and not indulge in “backseat driving” after leaving Powergrid.

Singh quickly replied that he was ready to leave right now — and with a clean break — but it was the ministry that was holding him back. To this, Razdan replied that the delay was meant for this occasion — the award of navratna status to the company. Singh stunned everyone present by replying in public that this was definitely not the reason, adding that he would divulge the actual reason in his autobiography.