<b>Newsmaker:</b> S Narsing Rao

Telangana's very own coal man

Singyapalli Narsing Rao, the chairman and managing director of Coal India Ltd (CIL), is going to quit his post next week apparently to take up a position in the maiden government of Telangana, India's 29th state newly carved out from Andhra Pradesh. The news sparked speculations about the timing of the decision and Rao's links with the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) , the party set to form the government on June 2.

Rao resumed work on Wednesday after a 15-day leave. But tongues started wagging when he was spotted with TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao, popularly known as KCR. The prospective chief minister of the new state, KCR is currently doing the rounds of the governor's office to set up his team of officials belonging to the home cadre of Andhra Pradesh. Apart from Rao, an Indian Administrative Service officer of 1986 batch, KCR is learnt to have asked two more officials to work in the Chief Minister's Office.

KCR envisions Telangana as a power-deficit free state, and Rao fits in, for he is widely considered to be the brain behind the twin units of the Singareni Thermal Power Project in Adilabad. The project was initiated with no budgetary support from the state, funded completely through internal revenues and loans from the Singareni Collieries Company, the state-owned coal mining company that Rao headed for four years until 2012 before joining CIL. This, though, is not the only feather in Rao's cap. He is credited with the successful turnaround of Singareni Collieries. He took its revenue growth from a mere 3 per cent to 10 per cent in 2011-12. Also, during his tenure, the company witnessed its first strike-free run in 2007-08.

With credentials like those, it was no surprise that Rao was chosen by the government for the top post at CIL in 2012, even as he was reluctant to shift from Andhra. When he took over, CIL was grappling with a three-year stagnation in output. Rao broke the bounds, and CIL registered a 4 per cent jump in production in 2012-13. He also quickly acted on CIL's biggest handicap - its relatively inefficient workforce. In March 2013, he launched a performance-linked appraisal system designed to make its staff more efficient. Rao is now eager to help build Telangana. He told Business Standard that as a 'son of the soil', he was looking forward to working in Telangana as the new state requires dedication and effort by men in government to meet the aspirations of its people.