Race Heats Up For MP Electricity Regulatory Commission Chairman Post; 30 Candidates In Contention

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The state government is getting ready to appoint the chairman of the MP Electricity Regularity Commission (MP ERC) after selecting the state election commissioner. Starting the process for the appointment to MP ERC, the government has set up a three-member committee under a retired judge, RC Varshney.

The tenure of the former chairman of ERC, ASPS Parihar, ended on January 2. A meeting of the committee may soon be held for fresh appointment. Thirty-one candidates have applied for the post of ERC chairman. Because Additional Chief Secretary Mohd Suleman has withdrawn his application, now 30 candidates are left in the race.

Besides a few retired IAS officers, lawyers, RTI activists and people belonging to other fields have applied for the post. Appointing IAS officers as chairman of ERC has so far been the tradition. So, the same thing may happen this time, too. Retired IAS officers, like Ashish Upadhyay, Sanjay Bandyopadhyay, Malay Shrivastava and Kalpana Shrivastava have also applied for the post.

A few IAS officers, who are in still in service, like SN Mishra, Ajit Kesari, and Vinod Kumar are also vying for the position. Besides fixing power rates, ERC plays an important role in the government’s power-related work.

Decisions on appointments have been surprising

The government has so far taken surprising decisions in appointing retired officers to important positions. The government has appointed SN Singh Chouhan to the State Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA). Similarly, it appointed Rakesh Kumar Shrivastava to State-level Expert Appraisal Committee (SEAC).

After the appointment of Manoj Shrivastava as the state election commissioner, the government may spring a surprise in the appointment of ERC chairman. A committee, set up to appoint ERC chairman, will take a decision after going through the applications and holding an interview of the candidates.