Ashutosh Garg has over three decades of experience in the power sector. He has worked extensively in the high-voltage transmission space, with expertise in developing new extra high-voltage substations across the country. In his current role as vice-president of operations in the power transmission division at GR Infraprojects, he heads end-to-end project management, including the execution of the “Transmission System for Evacuation of Power from RE Projects in Rajgarh (1,500 MW) SEZ in Madhya Pradesh”.
Garg believes that innovating on methods for the rapid addition of 500 GW of renewable power by 2023 can add value to the power transmission segment. This has the potential to strengthen the current network by minimising losses and reducing the dependence on thermal resources. As a private sector developer, he believes that the biggest challenges the sector faces are issues relating to right of way (especially in railways, forest and powerline crossings), lack of transparency in processes, significant gaps in coordination efforts among government bodies and delays in clearance and approval processes. He believes that addressing these challenges requires developers to adopt close and proactive coordination with all the stakeholders. Garg notes, “Going forward, the transmission segment needs incentive schemes and a single nodal agency or one window of the government sector to address the challenges mentioned above.”
He considers his current assignment as the most challenging and memorable one in his career, which necessitates leveraging his experience of 30 years. It has required an action-oriented approach across all aspects of engineering, procurement and construction in order to bring the project to its current state.
As a leader, Garg encourages an action-oriented approach among his team members and strives to bridge competency gaps while encouraging continuous involvement. He fosters a culture of continuous on-the-job learning, provides training to the team, and shares his knowledge and experiences with them. Garg is a BTech graduate from Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology and has an MBA in operations.