Santosh Kumar Sarangi gets additional charge as CMD of Solar Energy Corp

New Delhi: The Union government has given Santosh Kumar Sarangi, the secretary to the union ministry of new and renewable energy, additional charge as chairman and managing director (CMD) of Solar Energy Corporation of India.

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The appointment comes after the Rameshwar Prasad Gupta was removed from the post on Saturday, a month ahead of the end of his tenure.

Sarangi will remain in his new post "till the appointment of a regular incumbent or until further orders, whichever is earlier," said a notification by the Department of Personnel and Training.

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Sarangi, an IAS officer of 1994 batch Odisha, was appointed the secretary, MNRE last month among several other bureaucratic reshuffles, following his stint as the director general of foreign trade under the ministry of commerce and industry.

The department of personnel and training in a strongly-worded notification on Saturday, said that the appointments committee of the cabinet has approved "termination of services" of Gupta, IAS, as the CMD of SECI with immediate effect. The notification did not cite any reason for the termination.

Incorporated in 2011, SECI serves as an implementing agency for the development of solar, wind and hybrid projects and plays a key role in the country's energy transition journey as the Centre aims to achieve 500 GW non-fossil capacity by 2030.. To achieve this, SECI releases tenders for selection of renewable energy developers for the establishment of projects on a pan-India or state-specific basis.

The sudden removal of Gupta as CMD attracted criticism from the Congress party, whose general secretary and Rajya Sabha member Jairam Ramesh described the move as an "attempt to cover up" the alleged scam that led to Adani's indictment last year.

Last November US prosecutors indicted Gautam Adani and other executives for alleged bribery. Speaking to Mint in November, Gupta said that SECI would not review the order or initiate a probe as there was no basis for it. He denied any wrongdoing. The Indian conglomerate has denied the allegations by the DoJ and the SEC, describing the allegations against its directors as “baseless.”

“The Adani Group has always upheld and is steadfastly committed to maintaining the highest standards of governance, transparency and regulatory compliance across all jurisdictions of its operations. We assure our stakeholders, partners and employees that we are a law-abiding organisation fully compliant with all laws,” a spokesperson for the group had said then. 

The Adani Group and SECI did not immediately respond to mailed queries about the Congress's allegations.

"The public sector Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) was indicted on November 20, 2024, by US authorities in the chargesheet against Gautam Adani and his close associates. It was based on SECI’s recommendation that different states entered into purchase agreements with Adani. Bribes worth ₹2,029 crore were then reportedly offered and promised to Indian Government officials in exchange for these agreements, which were then finalized," Ramesh said in a post on X.

He further said that the SECI changing the way it issues power tenders was “an implicit admission of corruption." 

Of late, the state-run company has found itself embroiled in a few controversies, including its mention in SEC indictment, and the submission of fake bid documents by Reliance Power to SECI for a renewable energy tender.

On 6 November, SECI barred Reliance Power and its subsidiary Reliance NU BESS from participating in tenders floated by the state-run entity for three years for allegedly submitting fake documents. However, it later withdrew its order following the Delhi High Court's stay on the company's debarment.

SECI has been tasked with tendering 20 GW of renewable energy projects a year for the next few years. The company also has plans to set up 10 GW of solar capacity of its own and go public by FY27.