Teri looks to salvage reputation with new leadership

Just as it's true for a majority of NGOs in India, The Energy and Resources Institute (Teri), too, was synonymous with its top boss. But, with Rajendra Kumar Pachauri, the person at the organisation's helm for 25 years, going on leave once again, Teri with its 1,000-plus employees will need to emerge from the battered reputation.

Ajay Mathur, who took over as director-general from Pachauri, is now in a position to start an urgent house-cleaning job besides rebuilding Teri as a technology and policy incubator in the energy and resources sector.

A BRIEF HISTORY

• Established in 1974 as Tata Energy Research Institute  
• 1981: R K Pachauri made director
• 2003: Entity is renamed The Energy and Resources Institute
• Rs 195 crore : Total annual financial inflows in 2013-14
• Rs 70.49 crore :Foreign funding received in 2013-14
• 1200 employees; 33% women staff
• 54% are scientists, biotechnologists and engineers
• 200 ongoing projects spread over 50+ countries
• Research areas include  biotechnology, industrial efficiency, forestry, energy, earth sciences and climate change

On the day former Competition Commission of India chairman Ashok Chawla took over as chairman at Teri, displacing B V Sreekantan - a noted scientist and decades-old colleague of Pachauri - he said the organisation would set out its task and priorities over the next 10 days. The person in the driver's seat would be Mathur, who was finally handed unabridged executive powers on Friday to run the show at Teri.

Mathur's first round of meeting with senior employees of Teri had clearly brought out that the organisation required an internal overhaul. "While Mathur talked of cleaning up internal processes at Teri, others said the organisation also had to act right, specifically with regard to the allegations against Pachauri," said an employee who was present at the meeting.

"My one priority is to facilitate an atmosphere where every colleague enjoys working at Teri and that they are able to give their best," Mathur had said back in July after he was first hired for the job.

The house-cleaning job will require Mathur to deftly engage with those who remained deeply attached to Pachauri's legacy. This was evident over the past two days in the meeting of the governing council as well as the senior employees meeting that was held on Thursday.

Two senior women employees and one senior male employee Business Standard spoke to said many inside the organisation would wait and watch how Mathur deals with the specific case of the alleged sexual harassment against Pachauri. Teri will have to face two complexities on this front. The complainant had resigned from Teri alleging maltreatment following her complaint against Pachauri.

The allegations are now stuck at two levels - the civil case and the criminal complaint. Teri would have to ensure it is not seen as a proxy for Pachauri as the latter mounts his defence in courts. With Pachauri having only gone on leave and not resigned - which means he continues to hold his positions in the organisation though he will not have any powers - Teri expects the media scrutiny of its actions on the sexual harassment cases to continue.

Teri under Mathur is also set to re-establish its larger reputation. The organisation had had to postpone its most famous public engagement forum - the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit, which usually sees attendance of experts, ministers and heads of states from several countries besides having top political and bureaucratic leadership from India in attendance.

Mathur, who has worked in the private sector, international financial institutions as well as in the government, is expected to renew the organisation's relations with others in the coming months.

One senior employee, not wishing to be named, said, "I guess he (Mathur) has twin sets of tasks before him. He has to salvage Teri, its work and people from the toxic legacy of the past one year. The past has to be dealt with head on. In addition, Mathur needs to give some new direction and energy to the organisation. The infamy that the allegations brought to Teri overshadowed Teri's good work."

Mathur had earlier indicated he would also assess in which work areas did Teri have a strong presence and potential areas that it had not paid attention to so far. He saw water resources as an area that Teri could focus on in addition to its current portfolio of work.

With Pachauri also famously leading the pack of more than 2,000 scientists on climate change as the global arena heated up towards Paris summit in 2015, some other key achievements of the organisation had been partly eclipsed. Several employees in the NGO talked of the organisation's successful project in Kuwait. Teri had innovated a technology to deal cheaply with oil sludge and had won a global tender to be part of the cleaning up of Kuwait oil wells.

After Paris, when the country tries to operationalise the targets of the new global climate change agreement starting 2020, Mathur hopes to get Teri to be involved in the technological end of the task.

The organisation has constantly played a part in modelling India's greenhouse gas emissions trajectories - last it did so for the government to decide India's targets under the Paris agreement. Mathur hopes Teri would also aid in technology development in achieving these targets.

But, one thing TERI has not done previously and will continue to not do under Mathur is public advocacy and environmental activism.