Who is P.C. Parakh?

Bureaucrats who know him all call him an upright officer. The Comproller and Auditor General characterised him as a whistle blower in its report on the coal scam. But now he is under the scanner of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on charges of alleged criminal conspiracy.

Prakash Chandra Parakh, 68, born at Jodhpur, Rajasthan, studied at the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, and later at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom. He worked as a mining geologist with the National Mineral Development Corporation and Hindustan Copper before joining the Indian Administrative Service in 1969 and being allotted to the Andhra Pradesh cadre.

During his long career in the IAS, he has handled the departments of civil supplies, land reforms and commercial taxes in the Andhra Pradesh government at Hyderabad, before moving to Delhi as Director in the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural in 1983. Later, he returned to the state government and was posted in the industries department. He has been commissioner, secretary and principal secretary in the department of industries.

In March 2004, Parakh returned to the Centre as secretary in the Ministry of Coal. He retired in December 2005 and is currently working with two NGOs which support physically challenged people and kidney patients. He is also currently writing his memoirs, which among other matters, he says will analyse corruption in the government and the different kind of situations he has faced in this regard. He hopes the book will be released in the next three to four months.