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Brar is PSEB chief
WSN Networks
PATIALA: Just on
the last day of his tenure, and despite having extended his tenure
by a year and actually changing the requirements of age, Parkash
Singh Badal-led Punjab Government showed the door to Punjab State
Electricity Chairman Y S Ratra and appointed instead Harinder Singh
Brar as the new chairman.Brar
assumed the new office in the afternoon of Tuesday, minutes after
Ratra was told to go.
Ratra was
appointed by Amarinder Singh after he retired as the Chief
Secretary. He was known as an honet officer but a close chum of
Amarinder. Badal seemed to go well with Ratra and the case for his
yet another extension was already cleared but it seems the
government changed its mind.
Ratra had only
couple of days ago actually advocated that the Board should be
broken into three parts, something that did not go down well with
Badal.
Brar was earlier
Member (Distribution) in the board. A close aide in the Chief
Minister’s office, who is also a distant relative of the Badals, was
pushing Brar’s case for a few weeks now.
The filling of
the post had become a headache for the Akalis, as there were far too
many political leaders aspiring for it. Many of them were senior
Akali leaders who had lost in the Assembly polls in the state. This
is the reason why the Chief Minister had let Ratra to continue, and
has now replaced him with a technocrat. It has been long since a
technocrat was appointed to the post, with politicians and
bureaucrats holding it earlier.
Coming from a
rural background, Brar joined PSEB as an apprentice engineer and
rose to the rank of engineer-in-chief after working with the board
for 35 years. He was retained as advisor/sub-station after retiring
in January 2008, and was elevated as Member (Distribution) in April
2008.
14 January 2009
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