Former coal secretary Anil Jain to head oil and gas watchdog

Former coal secretary Anil Kumar Jain has been appointed chairman of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB).

Jain, a 1986-batch Madhya Pradesh cadre IAS officer, has spent more than a decade formulating energy-sector policies at the petroleum and coal ministries as well as Niti Aayog. Jain has a doctorate in energy studies and has papers and a book published on the country’s natural gas sector.

He will fill a position that has been vacant since December 2020. Jain’s appointment comes after three attempts to fill the position in the past two years failed. Former power secretary Sanjeev Sahai, former petroleum secretary Tarun Kapoor and former BPCL chairman Arun Singh were picked by the petroleum ministry’s selection panel but were not appointed to PNGRB.

Jain will have a term of five years or until he reaches the age of 65. His predecessor Dinesh Sarraf had only a three-year term. Under Sarraf, PNGRB initiated several reforms in the country’s gas sector and massively expanded the city gas distribution sector.

Jain will need to closely monitor the city gas expansion, deal with the issue of marketing infrastructure exclusivity of distributors, and further smoothen regulatory structure to help develop natural gas market.