More than a dozen candidates, including senior IAS officer Shishir Priyadarshi are in race for the top job at India’s biggest power equipment maker Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL).

Government head-hunters, the Public Enterprise Selection Board (PESB) has called 15 candidates for interviews on June 20 to select Chairman and Managing Director of BHEL, sources said.

Priyadarshi, a 1980 batch UP cadre IAS officer, is the only bureaucrat to have applied for the top job at BHEL.

Others in fray include BHEL Executive Directors N Ravi Chander, Anuj Bhatnagar, Prakash Chand and Akshil Joshi.

Security Printing & Minting Corp of India Ltd (SPMCIL) Chairman M S Rana, Heavy Engineering Corp Ltd (HECL) Director (Production) Kushal Saha, Container Corp of India (CONCOR) Director (Project & Services) Harpreet Singh, Coal India Ltd Director R Mohan Das, NHPC Director (Projects) J K Sharma, PGCL Director (Project) I S Jha, SJVNL Director (Civil) R N Misra and PDIL CMD M R Kanth are among others in the race.

The PESB is to select a replacement for B Prasada Rao who retires in January next year on attaining superannuation age.

Sources said Priyadarshi had last year applied for top job at Coal India Ltd (CIL) but was not called for interview.

He has, however, made it to the grades in case of BHEL.

He had served at WTO in Geneva for eight years, first during 1997-2000, and then between 2002 and 2007. In 2001-02, he was with UNDP. From September 2008, the official records say “posting awaited” against his present posting.

Interestingly, last year his name figured in a list of 9 IAS officers against whom the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) was considering enforcing “deemed resignation” for allegedly “unauthorised absence”.

After returning from foreign deputation on September 1, 2008, he had applied for leave which was not sanctioned.

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