POWERGRID: What strong oversight looks like |
Every Kashmiri who has watched a 400 kV tower rise on a hillside, through an orchard or across a village path has seen how large these projects are. Many have also wondered how a project of this scale is governed.
Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (POWERGRID) is a Maharatna public sector company and the backbone of the national transmission network. It carries our hydropower out in summer and brings in power when winter demand outstrips local generation. It also shapes where lines run, which trees are felled and how landowners are compensated.
I write as an environmental scientist, a former regulator and a certified Independent Director. This author appreciates the work of POWERGRID’s engineers and linemen, who operate in some of the hardest terrain in the country. But at the same a, governance question comes to mind.
What should independent oversight of a company like this look like? How closely does the public record show it, especially for Jammu & Kashmir?A strong companyThe starting point is a company that performs. According to PSU Connect’s report on its FY26 results, POWERGRID earned standalone net profit of ₹15,921 crore for 2025-26 and is paying a total dividend of ₹9 per share. Its own Integrated Annual Report 2025-26 records record capital expenditure of ₹39,967 crore, and PSU Watch’s report on the 37th annual general meeting says the company operates 292 substations and about 1.87 lakh circuit km of lines, with availability above 99.8%.
The company’s Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report (BRSR) for 2025-26 says its core indicators carry reasonable assurance from TÜV India, a higher standard than many listed companies meet. The same report says Scope 1 and 2 emissions fell 17.95% in 2025-26 and that renewable reached 35.74% of its energy mix. These achievements are the base for any fair discussion.
What the public registry shows, and what it cannotMost citizens would look first at the corporate registry. ZaubaCorp’s profile, compiled from Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) filings records POWERGRID’s Corporate Identification Number as L40101DL1989GOI038121, incorporation on 23 October 1989 as National Power Transmission Corporation Ltd, registration with the Registrar of Companies, Delhi, and classification as a Union government company. Authorised capital is ₹10,000 crore and paid-up capital ₹9,300.6 crore. It names directors including Ravisankar Ganesan, Ravindra Kumar Tyagi, Yatindra Dwivedi, Abhay Choudhary, Chetan Bansilal Kankariya, Saibaba Darbamulla, Lalit Bohra and Ram Naresh.
The same page shows the limits of such aggregators. It lists the last annual general meeting as 30 August 2023 and the last balance sheet as 31 March 2023, although the notice of the 37th AGM confirms the company met on 20 August 2026. Assets, revenue and profit are blank, the member count reads zero and the complaints tables are empty. This is a lag in a third-party database, not evidence of any violation. It does mean that a citizen in Srinagar or Kishtwar who relies on it will learn little about how the board handles environmental and community risk. For that, the exchange filings, annual report and sustainability report are the better record.
Independent oversight: why continuity mattersThe corporate governance filing that POWERGRID lodged with NSE for the quarter ended 31 March 2026 shows a board of ten with three independent directors, and records compliance with Regulation 17 of the SEBI Listing Regulations as “No”.
The three, Rohit Vaswani, Shiv Tapasya Paswan and Smt. Sajal Jha, were appointed on 16 April and 16 May 2025. The company’s Annual Secretarial Compliance Report for 2025-26 explains that the board had no independent directors from November 2024, when two tenures ended, and that quorum could not always be met. The company’s stated position in both documents is that the President of India appoints independent........