Brijeshwar Singh has been re-employed as the chairman of National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) for three months, till November 30. Serving as the NHAI chairman, Singh was to retire on Tuesday. His re-employment is a stop-gap arrangement as the government could not find his successor till now.
?The re-employment is on contract basis and Singh will cease to be a government officer henceforth,? a senior official in the road ministry told FE. Singh will have to exit office if the government manages to find a replacement before the end of November 2010. The order was given by Appointments Committee of Cabinet on Tuesday. Singh?an Indian Administrative Service officer of 1975 batch of Tamil Nadu cadre?denied to comment on the development.
A government official, who was privy to the development, said the extension will help the authority in carrying out the highway development programme without interruption and enable it to achieve the 20-km road construction by November, as envisaged by road and highway minister Kamal Nath. ?There is another pressing task of awarding contracts for recovering user fee at more than 100 public-funded toll plazas by September 15,? he said on the condition of anonymity. NHAI has already started the process of awarding 92 such contracts.
The appointment of new chairperson of NHAI has been jinxed as the committee formed to select the right candidate has been scrapped twice. The latest scrapping was done earlier this month as ?the panel did not get applications from eligible candidates,? a senior official in the ministry said. The first committee was terminated after then road secretary Brahm Dutt applied for the post of NHAI chairman even though he was one of the members of the panel. The government is now forming a new selection committee.
Singh and previous road secretary Brahm Dutt had applied for the post both the times. Ex-director general of foreign trade R S Gujral was also one of the applicants. Gujral has been appointed as road secretary now.