New Delhi, March 24
A Parliamentary committee has pulled up the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) for "inordinate delay" in appointment of women Directors and other Independent Directors on the board of public sector power generator NTPC.
In its eighth report presented in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, the Committee on Public Undertakings, chaired by BJP's Meenakshi Lekhi, took serious note of the delays in key appointments on the PSU's board and said that DPE should undertake an introspection of their working, particularly about filling up of the vacancies of Directors in CPSUs with a view to identifying the factors responsible for abnormal delay in this case and fixation of responsibility.
It said that DPE should immediately develop a system of a digital dashboard to maintain database of the positions of Independent Directors in all CPSUs with a view to suo moto initiate the process of new appointments, at least six months before occurrence of the vacancies.
With regard to absence of a woman Director on the NTPC board, the committee recommended the DPE apprise it of the specific reasons for taking unduly long period on this issue and identify the factors responsible with a view to take corrective measures to avoid reoccurrence of such inordinate delay in future.
It also asked the Power Ministry to escalate the matter to the Cabinet Secretary level informing it about the inordinate delay by the DPE in appointment of women Director in the Board of NTPC.
The Committee, also took into account delay in projects, seemingly due to setting up a separate mining company – NTPC Mining Ltd (NML) – and recommended that NTPC should explore the possibility of developing these coal blocks/mines on their own and if considered necessary, a separate department/vertical within the NTPC organisation may be created to exclusively deal with the development of these coal blocks/mines.
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