In the midst of an ensuing war between Tata Power and Reliance Infrastructure over power supply agreements in Mumbai, Tata Power has brought in its business expert, Anil Sardana, to head the company. Sardana used to head BSES, which has been bought by Reliance.
Tata Power’s claim to fame is the Mundra ultra mega power project, which after commissioning would make it the private sector company with the highest capacity.
North Delhi Power was one of the first privatisation initiatives by the government, and Sardana was a part of the initial team.
An electrical engineer with a degree from Delhi College of Engineering, Sardana started his career with National Thermal Power Corporation. The experience helped him handle the challenge of reducing transmission & distribution (T&D) losses in Delhi, which was at a staggering 60 per cent. It took Sardana five years of consumer activities to reach out to the city’s population, a majority of which used to source power illegally.
One of his strategies was to talk directly to consumers and convey that uninterrupted power supply can be provided at better prices only if losses were reduced. Finally, T&D losses in the city fell below 15 per cent.
Sardana, however, is better known for his stint as MD of Tata Teleservices, where he successfully launched a GSM service joint venture with Japanese telecom major DoCoMo. Not only did he innovate on pricing, but he also shook up the sector with a one-paise-per-second plan — a move that increased the subscriber base to 85 million from 30 million in less than two years.
