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CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON | |
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For the first time in recent years, the chairman of a public sector enterprise has publicly taken on government bureaucrats and won. ONGC chairman Subir Raha, like the tiger, is flamboyant and sometimes fierce | |
Not for nothing do they call him Sheru. Not to his face, of course, for Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) chairman and managing director Subir Raha is known for his sudden roars. But the sobriquet that employees of the countrys largest revenue earner have coined for him befits the man who has been stalking his prey for a while. You can hate him or love him but you can ignore a tiger only at your own peril. Which is what a section of the government discovered this week. Subir Raha pounced on the government when it tried to control his writ over In the corporate world, opinion is divided on whether or not to celebrate. Some people somewhere are chalking out the next stage of the Raha-sidelining endeavour. But Raha himself is no doubt toasting with his favourite single malt, the smooth-flowing Glenfiddich. Some like S.L. Rao, former chairman of the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission believe that there is a larger story there and one that needs to be told. The whole tragedy of the Indian public sector has been that bureaucrats and ministers treat public sector enterprises as their personal fiefdoms, forgetting that they belong to the people, says Rao, who is also the former director general of the National Council of Applied Economic Research. I dont think theres any question that Raha is right. ONGC is a listed company, with shareholders, he says. To object to the presence of Sibal on the ONGC board is 100 per cent correct. Its like putting TRAI chairman Pradeep Baijal on the BSNL board. For 57-year-old Raha who studied electronics and telecommuncation engineering at His supporters, on the other hand, point out that it is under him that ONGC has turned into a Rs 47,245-crore company. In 1999, management consultants McKinsey had predicted that the Indian navratna a profit-making public sector unit would soon be a sick company. But under Raha, an old Indian Oil hand who joined ONGC in May 2001, net profits more than doubled from Rs 6,198 crore in 2001-2002 to Rs 12,983 crore in 2004-2005. Hes trying to clean up ONGC, to stem the rot in terms of corruption, says Rao. Hes a very straight man, very clever and intelligent. A workaholic he is said to be on the job for 18 hours a day the chain-smoking Raha, all agree, is an able manager. He really thinks on his feet, says an associate. After a very long time we have seen a CMD of a PSU who has excellent management capabilities. If given a free reign, he, with his ability and expertise, will convert ONGC into a truly world-class organisation, adds a retired oil industry company chairman. He is is also known as a shrewd negotiator. We saw things started moving in Petronet LNG once Raha came in. He is such a hard negotiator that he puts others to shame, says the head of an oil company. But the man, most agree, has a dictatorial side to him. Some describe him as brusque, a few call him stand-offish. He transfers people left, right and centre, points out a Raha watcher. He is headstrong, he says of the much-awarded vice-president of the All India Management Association, a body which he is slated to head in 2007. To his friends, he is an affable man, fond of, though not necessarily in that order, Earl Gray tea, Rabindra Sangeet, Hindustani classical music and mutton cooked with spring onions. He likes his Urdu couplets and is known to SMS jokes and couplets to his friends. He is a true Royal Bengal Tiger, says a friend. Like the tiger, always flamboyant and sometimes fierce. The metaphor does seem to follow him around. Or is it just a mere coincidence that today is World Tiger Day? And efforts are on to save the tiger? |
Dadababu would not allow Oxomiya Officers into topbrass meetings he held at Nazira/Sibsagar-mm
By Indo Asian News Service
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New Delhi, May 24 (IANS) Subir Raha, the colourful and high-profile chairman and managing director of India's largest company - the state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) - has been denied an extension, official sources said Tuesday.
His five-year term at the helm of the hydrocarbon giant, which earned a profit of $3.2 billion last fiscal and features on the Fortune 500 list, ended Tuesday.
R.S. Sharma, the seniormost member of the ONGC board who serves as director for finance, will take over from him as the officiating managing director till a successor is chosen.
ONGC's colourful boss Subir Raha denied extension |
Raha was also the chairman of the company's international arm - ONGC Videsh Ltd and oil refining subsidiary, Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd.
According to petroleum ministry sources, the last straw in denying him extension was a scathing attack on the safety standards at the oil exploration major that has been seen as the cause for the death of 11 officials on an off-shore rig.
The committee chaired by former petroleum secretary T.N.R. Rao to look into the fire at Bombay High platform and rig on July 27 last year assailed the company for its 'lackadaisical attitude towards safety' in a report to the government.
Raha - who had weathered many a storm during his five-year tenure - had rubbed the former petroleum minister Mani Shankar Aiyar the wrong way with a series of remarks against his political boss to both the media and in public.
Aiyar had sought to pull up ONGC for being unable to increase
Raha, on the other hand, had prevented additional nominees of the government from joining the company's board - which did not go down well with Aiyar, who saw the government-appointed executive's behaviour as an act of insubordination.
Official sources said the former petroleum minister's comments had been sought while deciding the ONGC chairman and managing director's extension and a view was accordingly taken at the Prime Minister's Office.
A senior official familiar with the goings-on at the time confided that the 'destructive feud' between Aiyar and Raha had harmed the interests of the Rs. 1,250 billion company.
He said Raha's 'egoistical' running of the company not only harmed the company but also national interests.
The 57-year-old alumnus of the
Known for hosting grand parties and gala evenings as ONGC chairman, Raha rose to join the IOC board in June 1998 as director for human resources development.
Prior to that, he served the government between 1996 and 1998 as the head of the petroleum ministry's Oil Coordination Committee and had worked on deregulating
Raha graduated in electronics and communications from the
He did not create the Modem-nor develop it further.
Instead he became the Lub-oil seller.
Latterly on filling a vac uum as ONGC chief by manipulation of CPI-M he considered himself the only know- all Dadababu far superior to anybody known in the Hydrocarbon World mm
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