Chand assumes charge as new CMD of NALCO

Odisha Channel Bureau Bhubaneswar, July 27: Tapan Kumar Chand has taken over as the full-time Chairman-cum-Managing Director of National Aluminium Company Limited (NALCO) here today. He brings along more than three decades of rich experience in mining and metal sector, including eight years at Board level.Prior to this, Chand was the Director (Commercial) of Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL).A Gold Medalist from Utkal University, Chand had undergone training in Advanced Management Programme in International Centre for Promotion of Enterprises (ICPE), in Western Europe and in Queensland University of Technology, Australia. Chand represented Indian Steel Industry in Paris Meet of OECD. In the areas of Corporate Governance, he was adjudged as the outstanding performer by SCOPE and Department of Public Enterprises, Govt.of India.He also served as Director in Central Coal, a Company of Coal India and then Director in Visakhapatnam Steel Plant.After assuming charge as the new CMD of the company, Chand informed that he would make all efforts to pave way for Team NALCO to surge upwards and scale greater heights of glory.Besides, value-based and system-driven management, Chand emphasised on a strong business sense at all levels to make NALCO products cost competitive in International market, diversification to top-up turnover, safety as a culture, empathetic welfare of employees and community around.Talking on the current business environment, the new CMD informed that both domestic and global markets are undergoing sluggishness and it is a difficult period for metal industries. Metal makers, be it ferrous and non-ferrous, need to focus on volume variance and price variance, to augment their realization, he said. New market, expansion of customer base, product diversification and high-end products are some of the initiatives need to be taken immediately to make NALCO tide over the existing market blizzard, he added.Chand has kept company’s expansion and diversification on top priority, along with existing asset utilization and cost reduction.