CIL chief resignation pending with DoPT; gets Telangana cadre

New Delhi: Coal India Chairman and Managing Director S Narsing Rao, seeking to play a key role in the new state of Telangana, is awaiting final government nod to be relieved from his post and has been provisionally allotted the state cadre along with 43 other IAS officials.

"Rao is yet to be relieved from the key post of CMD of Coal India and his file is pending with the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT)," a top Coal Ministry official told PTI. The chief of the world's largest coal miner put in his papers last month and is waiting for the government to relieve him from the post.

A Coal India official said that Rao is on leave this week and may join office next week. Rao could not be reached for comment. Meanwhile, the DoPT said in a notification that Rao, a 1986 batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, has been provisionally allotted the Telangana cadre.

The central government provisionally allocated members of the undivided IAS cadre of Andhra Pradesh to the Telangana cadre with effect from June 2, until further orders, the DoPT said in the notification that listed Rao and the names of 43 other officers. The notification made it clear that the provisional allocation did not confer any right on any officer to be assigned to either of the successor states during the final allotment. Capping decades of struggle, Telangana was carved out of Andhra Pradesh and came into being as the 29th state of India on June 2 when TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao was sworn in as Chief Minister at the head of an 11-member Cabinet.

Last week, the CIL chief had said that if everything fell into place, he would take up a new role as principal secretary in the Telangana chief minister's office. Rao, a 1986 batch Andhra Pradesh cadre IAS officer who hails from the Telangana region, was appointed chief of CIL in April 2012 for a five-year tenure. He is due to retire in 2018. Before joining Coal India, Rao was CMD of Singareni Collieries Company Ltd, owned by the Andhra Pradesh government and the Government of India on a 51:49 equity basis.