After a decade and half service in National Coal Development Corporation and Coal india during the eventful Nationalisation years, I had tenures in the Coal Ministry and Bureau of Public Enterprises before spending the next decade at the Board level in Mineral Exploration Corporation and Indian Rare Earths Ltd, all in the Public Sector. I was also on the Boards of Central Mine Planning & Design Institute, Uranium Corporation, Bharat Gold Mines and the management Board of Atomic Minerals Division.
My service career encompassed both fossil fuels and other minerals (both terrestrial and offshore), exploration, mine development and operations, shipping and port development, Corporate and Govt. administration, planning and research were covered, ghost writing for Papers & Publications, a ‘jack’ in true sense, with only a ‘Masters’ degree to boot (did part time MBA from FMS, Delhi). My postings included Metros and Cities at Calcutta, Delhi, Nagpur and Mumbai, besides the Coal Fields of South Karanpura in Bihar. All my tenures involved travels to numerous coal fields, mineral belts and remote corners of the distant States in the country & study, training and marketing tours overseas, spanning all but one continent. This gave me periodic opportunities to keep in touch with quite a few of our dear friends from BHU.
After superannuation in 1996 as Chairman Managing Director of Indian Rare Earths Limited, Bombay, I have been sharing my experience in a Ministry or two, assisting MOEF for a world bank project, Govt. Committees, Mining Associations, Chambers of Commerce etc, besides a couple of consultancy assignments in varied fields
On the family front, my wife Kishori has been a great support and companion all through.
We are blessed with two sons.
The elder one Nilabh , an Architect, graduated from School Of Planning & Architecture, New Delhi and is working as an Associate with Hafeez Contractor at Mumbai. He's married to Kalpana, Chartered Accountant & Masters from London School Of Economics and has two kids, Akriti (10 ) & Akhil (5).
The younger one Shailabh, after passing out from IIT New Delhi did his Ph.D in computer science from Penn State University, and is presently with IBM India Research Lab at Bangalore. He's married to Rashmita, CPA and has an eighteen month old daughter Aditi.
Both of them in their chosen fields are trying to make their own marks. In short, the Baton has been passed on, and after running our lap (not a bad one at that), we two are slowly walking back to the Pavilion and spending more and more time with the generation next.
