Hyderabad: The Centre is likely to appoint an outsider to the Hyderabad-based National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI) as director owing to a lack of consensus in the government for an in-house NGRI scientist to be selected for the post.
Sources informed that there was a lot of political squabbling among the current scientists, which was preventing the NDA government to select a candidate from within. However, it is not clear when the appointment is likely to be made.
The prestigious NGRI has been without a director since January 2014, when the then incumbent Prof Mrinal Kanti Sen resigned. Even then, it is learnt, there were internal tussles over his eligibility to be director due to his citizenship.
An interim director was appointed but he soon retired. Since then, director of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Dr Ch. Mohan Rao, has been the in-charge director of NGRI.
He has been in-charge for more than six months now and sources said that he was initially told that a new director would be appointed within two weeks, which was then extended to four weeks. But since then, there had been no movement on the issue.
Union science and technology minister Dr Harsh Vardhan had recently said that the government was aware of the issue and would appoint someone very soon.
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