The board is soon expected to decide on the next chairman and managing director of the company. At present, S K Garg occupies the post. He is also the director of projects and finance.
Of the heavyweights in the fray, internal candidates include senior directors like S K Chaturvedi, Siba Prasad Sen and V K Abbey, apart from Garg himself.
Candidates from other power PSUs include NTPC Director (Operations) Chandan Roy. On the whole, NHPC leads the race with four candidates and Power Grid Corporation of India with three aspirants. The others include PGCIL's executive directors U C Mishra, N S Saxena and R G Yadav.
Claimants to the post also include Tehri Hydro Development Corporation executive director S K Shukla.
Sources said the PSU had seen over five chairmen and managing directors in the last decade and a regular appointee was a must for its progress.
Underutilisation of funds by NHPC may adversely affect its three flagship projects. Of Rs 3,791 crore (Rs 37.91 billion) earmarked in the annual plan for 2005-06, only Rs 2,081 crore (Rs 20.81 billion) had been used.
While organisations always vie for a greater share of the budgetary support pie, "the NHPC has spent only Rs 691 crore (Rs 6.91 billion) out of Rs 1,600 crore (Rs 16 billion) allocated to it as gross budgetary support.
Expenditure on projects has been low as the they are not going as per the programme schedule," sources added.
As a result, the commissioning of three projects - Parbati II (800 mw), Teesta Low Dam stage-III (132 mw) and Subansiri Lower (2000 mw) - with a combined capacity of 2932 mw, could be delayed.
However, Garg refuted the claims and said, "All efforts are being made by NHPC to complete the projects as per the approved schedule and NHPC is confident of achieving the desired results."
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