Kulamani Biswal Spent Three Decades Shaping the Finances Behind India’s Coal and Power Sectors

When India’s power sector is discussed, the conversation usually turns to megawatts, coal output and new capacity. The financial work that makes those numbers possible gets far less attention. Every plant, mine and transmission line depends on someone deciding how it will be funded, at what cost, and on what terms.

For more than thirty years, Kulamani Biswal was one of the people making those decisions. From 2013 to 2018 he served as Director (Finance) of NTPC Limited, the state-owned company at the centre of India’s power generation. His career before and after that role is a study in how finance shapes infrastructure.

His career began in 1985 at Coal India Limited, the company that anchors the country’s coal production. A commerce graduate of Utkal University and a fellow of the Institute of Cost Accountants of India, he entered the sector as a finance professional at a time when India’s energy ambitions were far larger than its balance sheets.

In 1997 he moved to the Orissa Electricity Regulatory Commission at Director level, a change that put him on the other side of the table. In 2004 he became Chief (Finance) at the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission, the national body that oversees tariffs and the commercial framework of the power sector.

That regulatory experience set him apart from many finance executives. Anyone who has spent years examining how costs are assessed, how tariffs are justified and how capital is treated understands what regulators look for. He brought that understanding back to the companies he later helped lead.

In October 2010 he returned to coal as Director (Finance) at Mahanadi Coalfields Limited, a Coal India subsidiary. There he was responsible for finance, accounting and corporate governance. Contemporary press coverage credited him with a pivotal role in the company’s rise to become the second largest coal company in India by production and profitability.

In December 2013 he took over as Director (Finance) of NTPC. He was 52 and had about 28 years of experience across the coal and power sectors. It was a significant move, from a coal subsidiary to the finance function of the country’s largest power generator.

The job was demanding because power generation is capital-intensive. Plants take years to build and decades to repay, and the financing decisions made at the start shape a company’s costs for a generation. At NTPC the scale of that task was considerable, and the finance function carried a great deal of responsibility.

One result drew particular attention. During his tenure, NTPC reduced its cost of debt to 7.81 percent a year, a figure its own communications described as one many in the industry would envy. Funding costs are among the largest levers in a capital-heavy business, and getting them down is the kind of quiet achievement that rarely makes headlines.

The industry took notice. He received the “CFO of the Year” award from EPC World, with Ernst & Young as knowledge partner. In 2015 he was conferred the GSBA Top Rankers Excellence Award, “Financial Pride of India”, in the Best Finance Professional category. BT-STAR also named him PSU Director Finance of the Year in the Maharatna and Navratna category.

Recognition came from abroad as well. In October 2015 he was inducted as an honorary Fellow of the World Academy of Productivity Sciences at the World Productivity Congress in Halifax, Canada. The fellowship acknowledged his contribution to productivity science across the power chain, from NTPC and Coal India to the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission.

His influence extended beyond NTPC’s own balance sheet. He served as a non-executive director of PTC India Limited from 2015 to 2017 and sat on the board of PTC India Financial Services. He also chaired NTPC-Tamilnadu Energy Company and Meja Urja Nigam, two of NTPC’s joint ventures. These roles gave him a view across power trading, project finance and generation.

After leaving NTPC in 2018, he stayed active in corporate governance. He was an independent director of Ansal Properties & Infrastructure from 2021 to 2023, and his name also appears among the directors of the Bangladesh-India Friendship Power Company, a cross-border power venture.

He now practices as an Advocate at the High Court of Orissa, a move that draws on his decades of experience. Someone who has worked with tariff orders, regulatory filings and corporate governance from the inside brings a perspective that few lawyers in the sector can match.

His path through coal, regulation, generation and now the law is unusual. It suggests that careers in India’s energy sector need not stay within a single institution or discipline, and that the people who understand the system best are often those who have seen it from several sides.

It is also a reminder that the infrastructure India depends on is built on financial judgement as well as engineering. The people who make that judgement seldom become household names, but their work is felt in the cost of every unit of power and every tonne of coal.

Explore more on these topics