Three months on, R-Power still in search of a CEO

The previous CEO J P Chalsani had been handling the company's regulatory issues and liaison with the government

Reliance Power's latest setback from the central power regulator which rejected its tariff hike petition, comes at a time when it has no one at the helm of affairs.

It has been over three months since the J P Chalasani quit as MD & CEO of Reliance Power. Chalsani had been handling all the company's regulatory issues and liaison with the government, in addition to shouldering the massive capacity addition plans.

Last year, the company lost two more top executives—its chief financial officer Deepak Maheshwari and president of corporate development, Ashwin Kumar. A questionnaire sent to the company on the issue, did not elicit any response. However, sources said that the group managing director, Satish Seth, is now spending more time overseeing the company's affairs.

A senior group executive, however, said the company was in talks with a few candidates from public sector utilities for the position of CEO. "That's where experience lies in power sector,"he said.

Reliance Power had been searching for a CEO for the last five months. Until the chief executive is appointed, the current business head Srikanth Kulkarni is known to be running the day-to-day affairs.

“The recruitment process is in advanced stages. It is not that there are no people in the system to run the company,” said yet another company executive, who did not want to respond officially. R Venugopal Rao has been taking care of the financial affairs of the company.

“Recruiting at the chief executive levels can sometimes take around six to nine months. There is a lot of due diligence involved while hiring at that level. The person to be recruited will also take some time to transition from the current responsibilities,” said Moorthy Uppaluri, managing director of Randstad India.

Tata Motors which lost its managing director Karl Slym to a tragic demise, had formed a committee to run the affairs of the company. Most of them also have an interim acting chief executive. But, no such announcement was made by Reliance Power. “If there is a good second line of leadership, sometimes they can carry the company ahead for at least till a year,” said Moorthy. RPower claims to have arranged for the same, and that the company has been running smoothly.

Like most other power and infrastructure companies, Reliance Power too is facing many troubles. It has three petitions lying with Central Electricity Regulatory Commission for relief in the case of Sasan ultra mega power project. Last week, the CERC had rejected RPower plea for a tariff hike on account of diesel price increase for bulk consumers. A decision on remaining petitions is awaited. Besides, the 4,000 megawatt power project is in a major controversy with regards to diverting its excess coal to another project. The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has come out with a report quantifying losses to the government for this, at Rs 40,000 crore.

Its Krishnapatnam power plant too is waiting for a decision from the government, and is battling a case in the courts. The coal-based power project which imports coal from Indonesia is a victim of changed laws which makes its feedstock more expensive.