6 contenders including 4 railway officers, 2 insiders in race for Delhi Metro MD post

SIX contenders including four railway officers are in race for prestigious post of Managing Director of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC). On October 14, a three-member panel including the current MD E Sreedharan will interview six short-listed candidates. Over two dozen technocrats and bureaucrats had applied for the post after 78-year-old Sreedharan made it crystal clear that he would demit office by December 31, 2011 and an advertisement asking for suitable candidates was placed. DMRC’s annual turnover is about Rs 12,000 crore.

Here are the six short-listed names:

a)      Mangu Singh (Director, Works, DMRC)

b)      Sharat Sharma (Executive Director, Electrical, DMRC)

c)      Vipin Sharma (AGM North Frontier Railway)

d)      Sudhir Mittal (South Eastern Railway CPO Construction)

e)      RK Gupta (MD, Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation)

f)        Vijay Anand (Director, Rail Vikas Nigam Limited)

E Sreedharan reportedly said in the past that he would prefer an insider rather than an outsider to replace him. Though Mangu Singh and Sharat Sharma are currently working in DMRC, 1981 batch Indian Railway Service of Engineers officer Vijay Anand too worked in DMRC as director, projects.

The other two panelists of the selection committee are Union urban development secretary Sudhir Krishna and Delhi chief secretary Praveen Kumar Tripathi. Sreedharan has been saying all along that a very capable and experienced professional is to be selected to head such a prestigious organization. He also wanted the selected candidate to work with him for three months before the new person takes charge as Delhi Metro chief.

16 Bihar officers promoted as IAS

The Centre has cleared Bihar government’s proposal to promote 16 state civil services officers as IAS. They are Dhirendra Mohan Jha, Anil Kumar Verma, Lakshmeshwar Jha, Virendra Kumar Singh, Parmanand Jha, Ram Babu Singh, Dharmeshwar Thakur, Vijay Kumar Singh, Raghwendra Jha, Ram Roop Singh, Upendra Kumar, Anil Kumar, Rajiv Kumar Singh, Misbah Bari, Sanjay Kumar Singh, Ifthkar Masan

Action and Appointments

a) The Appointments Committee of Cabinet has approved extension of Central deputation tenure of Dr Amar Singh, a 1981 batch MP cadre IAS who is currently working as Executive Director (T), Food Corporation of India. The extension is for three months till January 6, 2012.

Will Nilekani make Ram Sewak Sharma a secretary at the rank of additional secretary?

WILL 1978 batch IAS officer from Jharkhand and former IITian Ram Sewak Sharma don a formal designation of the CEO of Nandan Nilekani-led Unique Identification Authority of India (UIAI) which would create a database of identity details of every Indian citizen? Whereas department of personnel and training (DoPT) in its recent appointment notice said that Mr Sharma had been appointed as Director General & Mission Director of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIAI), in the rank and pay of additional secretary, Mr Nilekani while taking charge as the chairman of the Authority (See picture above) on Thursday said Mr Sharma would join as “secretary and CEO” of the organization. Friends of babu blogger said that the corporate honcho, who was the co-chairman of Indian IT company Infosys Technologies, might have got confused with the sarkari ranks and dubbed a 1978 batch IAS a “secretary” whereas officers two years senior to him were yet to get the rank of a secretary. Though that could be a technical mistake of mixing up the posts of “secretary” and “additional secretary”, but it remains to be seen whether Mr Sharma is actually given a corporate title, “CEO” in the rank and pay of an additional secretary rather than continuing with the sarkari title, Director General or Mission Director as per DoPT’s earlier release. CVC prosecutes against 10 officers; 6 from I-T department The Central Vigilance Commission launched prosecution against 10 officers including six from Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), two from Department of Telecommunications and one each from Central Board of excise and Customs (CBEC) and ministry of home affairs (MHA). The commission disposed of 485 cases during June 2009 and advised initiations of major penalty proceedings against 134 officers. Of these, 46 were from public sector banks, 25 from MCD, 13 from ministry of railways, 7 from Khadi & Village Industries Commission etc. Action & Appointments a) Lok Ranjan, a 1989 batch IAS from Manipur Tripura cadre, presently working as director in the department of revenue has been appointed as joint secretary in the same department, in the pay band of Rs 37400-67000/- (PB-4) plus grade pay of Rs 10000. b) The proposal of the ministry of home affairs for inter-cadre transfer of Bharat Rahul Manhardan, IPS (AP, 2007) from Andhra Pradesh to Rajasthan on the ground of his marriage to Ms Mamta Bishnoi, IPS (RJ, 2007) has been approved. c) The proposal for inter cadre transfer of Nitish Kumar Jha, IAS (Manipur-Tripura, 2002) and Ms Radhika Jha, IAS (Sikkim, 2002) from their respective parent cadres to Uttarakhand cadre has been approved. d) Vijay Anand, IRS (C&CE, 1980) has been appointed as joint secretary in the department of space, in the pay band of Rs 37400-67000/- (PB-4) plus grade pay of Rs 10000, for a period of five years or until further orders.