Executive Focus

B u s i n e s s

i n d i a

august 21, 2011

Anil Sardana
MD, TaTa Power

Date of birth: 16 April 1959 education: Early schooling in Mumbai; from Middle Section onwards, from Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, Delhi, till 1975; Bachelors in Engineering from Delhi College of Engineering, 1975-80; Post-Graduate degree in Cost Accountancy (icwai), 1983; Post-Graduate Diploma in Management from Delhi, 1985; Attended a Top Management Programme at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, 1999 working life: Management trainee, ntpc: 1980; senior manager, bses: 1994-2002; md & ceo, North Delhi Power: 2002-06; ed, strategy & business development, Tata Power: 2006-08; md, Tata Tele Services: 2008-Jan 2011; md, Tata Power: January 2011 onwards

Powering ahead
t would have been difficult for anyone else to fill the outsized shoes of the Tata veteran, Prasad Menon, who retired as managing director of Tata Power in January. But 52-yearold anil sardana was not daunted by the challenge of taking over Menon, viewing his new posting as a homecoming of sorts. after all, sardana brought with him almost three decades of expertise and experience in the power sector. after graduating from the delhi College of engineering in 1980, he joined the state-owned national Thermal Power Corporation (ntpc) as a management trainee and was its senior manager when he moved on to Bombay suburban electric supply ( bses) in 1994. at that time, the controlling holding was with public sector financial institutions. after serving as vice president and coo, Coal Washeries, until bsess takeover by Reliance in 2002, sardana became founding managing director & ceo, north delhi Power Ltd (ndpl), the distribution arm of

Tata Power, which secured the contract for half of delhi. The other half went to his erstwhile employer, bses. He then moved to Tata Power, where he was executive director, strategy & business development, from February to august 2007 and continued to be on its board till July 2008. The clock has now turned full circle for sardana. He has now returned to Tata Power after a three and a half year stint as managing director of Tata Teleservices Ltd (ttsl) and Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Ltd. a keen strategist, sardana has, over the years, successfully managed turnarounds and management changes and established independent and joint venture companies from concept to benchmark performance standards. under his stewardship, ndpl notched several successes, particularly lowering commercial losses. His work in delhi has won him several awards from trade and government bodies. His stint at the Tata Tele group of companies was just as eventful. He
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spearheaded pan-india retail operations, including passive and active network management, and oversaw the build up of the customer base from 14 million in 2007 to over 85 million across more than 450,000 towns and villages by January 2011. Tata telecommunications grew from strength to strength, sardana establishing pan-india operations for the cdma brand Tata indicom, followed by a tie-up with Japans ntt docomo, one of the worlds leading mobile operators. during his tenure, the Tatas also did an equity swap with Quippo, a srei group enterprise, which created Viom networks, the most valuable telecom tower company with the highest tenancy ratios in the industry. He also led the transition of Tata Tele to a dual platform, with the launch of gsm services in the country. The brand, Tata docomo, rolled out services across 18 circles in record time and went on to add next generation 3g-network in nine circles. The response for Tata docomo

B u s i n e s s

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august 21, 2011

Executive Focus
areas. it is important to join hands with policymakers, regulators and institutions to advance technologies, strengthen the renewable energy portfolio, accelerate the development of cost effective energy efficiency programmes, and meet the growing electricity demand. in this regard, Tata Power is collaborating with national institutes like iit, Mumbai, and the university department of Chemical Technology, Mumbai. On Tata Powers social initiatives, sardana stresses that Corporate social Responsibility (csr) is a crucial pursuit. its our endeavour to be a neighbour of choice and in line with the vision of our founder, Jamsetjee nusserwanjee Tata, Tata Power has been building long-term relationships with its communities through sustainable development, he indicates. We have made significant efforts through our Principles

and Tata Photon brands was heartening as several industry firsts and innovative schemes were launched, including pay per use & per second billing. sardana was also instrumental in a unique initiative of creating the largest footprint of intra-circle roaming in 2g and 3g spaces with multi-operators. For all this, he was presented with the Telecom ceo of the Year award 2010 by three sector forums, namely, tele.net, Voice & data and the internet Mobile association of india (imai). i got further experience in marketing and managing consumer business during my telecom stint and it was highly fulfilling and, i believe, will help us at Tata Power too, he observes. Terming both Tata Teleservices and ndpl as challenging assignments, he mentions, in the 4.5 years, ndpl achieved benchmark performance, including world record reduction in aggregate technical and commercial losses from 53 to below 24 per cent. He adds that ndpl is today credited for service enhancement and innovative consumer-friendly initiatives. similarly, at Tata Teleservices, creating an engaging team and unlocking value embedded in the enterprise was a satisfying contribution, he notes. sardana cherishes the changes and improvements he ushered in at both ndpl and Tata Teleservices. Cultivating customer and employee loyalty to the organisation, building performing teams and creating value for shareholders were satisfying, he mentions. ive had many memorable experiences with the Tatas; its difficult to name one; its truly an inspiring institution and offers many opportunities to improve ones conviction towards humility, humbleness and humanity in general. ata Power today is indias largest integrated private power company with presence across the entire value chain in resources (coal mines), generation (thermal, hydro, solar and wind), transmission, distribution and trading. The company has been a front runner in introducing stateof-the-art power technologies. Tata Power has an aggressive plan of generating 25,000 mw by 2017 and

about a fourth of this will be generated by clean fuels in order to address the depleting levels of conventional fuels, sardana points out. The company has been working in different areas of renewable power generation, both grid-connected as well as distributed, and this will be through a combination of hydro, solar, wind, geothermal and waste gas plants. Tata Power is a leading wind power generator, with an installed capacity of 373 mw and a further 150 mw to be commissioned by next year. it is also one of the first companies to commission an environment-friendly 110 kw solar power system across the Valvan reservoir on an experimental basis. it then set up a 670 kw roof-top solar plant at its office in Carnac, Mumbai. The company currently has 447 mw of operational hydro power capacity in Maharashtra which

a keen strategist, sardana has, over the years, successfully managed turnarounds and management changes and established independent and joint venture companies
provides clean power to the island city of Mumbai. it has also partnered the Bhutanese government for hydro projects, which are the first of their kind in this Himalayan kingdom. The first such 114 mw dagachhu project will be commissioned by March 2013. Tata Power is undertaking commercially exploitable pilot projects on clean energy across india which will contribute to our renewable portfolio, maintains sardana. We have partnered australias sunengy Pty Ltd for building a floating solar technology pilot plant in india by the end of this year. The company has also invested in two australian companies. This includes a 10 per cent stake in Geodynamics, a geothermal energy company, and a stake purchase in exergen that holds expertise in technology that minimises moisture in coal. The company is also working on other aspects of water management, solid waste, green cover and renewable sources of energy. sardana is also evaluating different business models for distributed power generation and supply to rural
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of Community engagement to link the progress of our communities to our progress, ensuring that they benefit from our presence. The key thrust areas of his companys csr are education, infrastructure, environment, health, social welfare and sustainable livelihoods. apart from his work and family wife Kavita, who is a lecturer, and two sons, elder son akshay, doing his mba in australia, and aman, studying sciences in class xi sardana devotes his time to social endeavours as well. a rare senior corporate executive to enrol on the social networking site of Facebook, sardana in his profile endorses such causes as stop hunger for kids in india, help intellectually disabled adults, against cruelty to all animals. Yes, one keeps engaged with salient causes as they constitute the need of the society and environment we live in, he explains. if one can contribute even in a small measure towards mitigating the hardships of others, it gives one a reason to believe in ones own existence as human.
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