NEW DELHI : Deepak Amitabh, chairman and managing director at the country’s largest electricity trader, PTC India Ltd has resigned.

 “This is to inform you that Sh. Deepak Arnitabh, CMD, PTC India Ltd. has resigned from the post of CMD, PTC w.e.f. 5th November 2021 due to personal reasons. The Board has accepted the same in its Board meeting dated 13th Oct., 2021 . Necessary action will be taken for smooth transition," PTC said in a filing to the BSE.

Amitabh, an Indian Revenue Service officer of the 1984 batch was earlier additional commissioner of Income Tax in New Delhi and also joint commissioner of Income Tax in Mumbai. He joined PTC on deputation in September 2003 and then became its chief financial officer before assuming the CMD position in October, 2012. 

 “I have resigned on personal grounds after spending 18 years with the organisation. After nurturing the next generation of talent, it is time for me to move on," Amitabh told Mint.

PTC has been part of India’s plan to play a key role in creating a new energy security architecture for its neighbours. Cross border energy trade is a key part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s South Asia-focused neighbourhood-first policy. While India has been procuring hydropower from Bhutan, it is also supplying electricity to Bangladesh and Nepal. The plan now is to include the option of building an overhead electricity link with Sri Lanka. 

PTC is partly owned by the Indian government. According to the PTC website, the power trader was set up in 1999 as a government initiated public-private partnership. Its promoters include state run NTPC Ltd, Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd, Power Finance Corporation and NHPC Ltd.

Amitabh is also part of a high-level group headed by former Union power secretary Ram Vinay Shahi tasked with helping build a South Asia-focused energy security architecture. The high-level group, named the South Asia Group for Energy (SAGE), has been set up under the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA)-run think tank Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS).

This comes in the backdrop of state-run hydropower generator SJVN Ltd’s plans to acquire PTC India Ltd’s 288-megawatts (MW) wind power assets hitting the skids as reported by Mint earlier. The transaction also holds the key to PTC India’s strategy to exit its wind power business, owned by its unit, PTC Energy Ltd.