The Tamil Nadu Electricity Regulatory Commission (TNERC), which remained headless for two-and-a-half years, has got a new chairperson.
S. Akshayakumar, who officiated as Managing Director of the Tamil Nadu Transmission Corporation (TANTRANSCO) till last month, has been made its chairperson. The order was issued by the government on Friday.
Mr. Akshayakumar will be the first person outside the IAS cadre to hold the post, which has a five-year tenure. His predecessors include A. Balraj and S. Kablian, both IAS officers.
The other two members of the Commission are S. Nagalsamy and G. Rajagopal, both of whom had worked in the erstwhile Tamil Nadu Electricity Board.
The vacancy became a subject of litigation. Disposing of a petition in February, the Madras High Court asked the government to appoint a chairperson within three months.
Mr. Akshayakumar, 58, was chosen at a meeting of the select committee early this week. He belonged to the 1978 batch of engineering graduates of Annamalai University. In 1979, he joined the TNEB, and was associated with many power projects, including the Mettur and Tuticorin Thermal Power Projects.
He became Chief Engineer (Transmission) in 2008. In December 2009, he was made Director (Transmission) when the TNEB was restructured into the TANTRANSCO and the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation.
For a few months this year, he was Managing Director of the TANTRANSCO.
