INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
A petrol filling station belonging to Hindustan Petroleum (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)4 min read Last Updated : Jun 16 2024 | 11:21 AM
IST
The government headhunter PESB has rejected all candidates it interviewed for the top job at Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd
(HPCL), the third instance in as many years that the board has not found any suitable candidate for the role in a state oil firm.
The
Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) on June 14 interviewed eight candidates, including a director on the HPCL board and managing
director of Indraprastha Gas Ltd (IGL), but rejected them all.
"The Board did not recommend any candidate for the post of chairman and
managing director (CMD) HPCL and advised the Ministry of Petroleum - Natural Gas to choose an appropriate course of further action for
selection, including the Search-Cum-Selection Committee (SCSC) or as deemed appropriate with the approval of the competent authority," the
PESB panel said in a notification.
The HPCL CMD post will fall vacant on September 1, 2024, when the incumbent Pushp Kumar Joshi retires on
attaining a superannuation age of 60 years.
The PESB had previously not found anyone suitable for the top job at the Indian Oil Corporation
(IOC) and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC)
This led to the incumbent in IOC getting an additional year in office even after attaining superannuation age and a retired executive being
given charge in ONGC.
PESB, on June 3, 2021, interviewed nine candidates, including two serving IAS officers, to head India's largest oil
But it found neither senior bureaucrats Avinash Joshi and Niraj Verma nor Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) director-finance
Pomila Jaspal and ONGC director for technology and field services Om Prakash Singh suitable.
The ministry thereafter constituted a
search-cum-selection panel and named Arun Kumar Singh, who had retired after attaining 60 years of age from Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd
Singh wasn't eligible to apply in the first place, but the eligibility rule was changed to allow consideration of persons who have attained
He was given a three-year term that ends in December 2025.
In the case of IOC, PESB, in May last year, did not make any recommendation for
a replacement of Shrikant Madhav Vaidya, who was to retire after attaining 60 years of age in August 2023
The panel interviewed 10 candidates, including Chennai Petroleum Corporation Ltd (CPCL) managing director Arvind Kumar.
This was followed
Vaidya, who took over as the chairman of India's biggest oil company on July 1, 2020, was "re-employment on a contract basis" for one year
"beyond the date of his superannuation i.e
with effect from September 1, 2023, till August 31, 2024", according to an official order dated August 4, 2023.
This month, the oil
ministry invited applications for the new chairman of the Indian Oil Corporation (IOC)
The selection will be done by a three-member search-cum-selection committee headed by the PESB chairperson and includes the oil secretary
and former HPCL chairman MK Surana as members.
Applications have been sought from engineers, chartered accountants and cost accountants
with postgraduate management degrees from leading institutions and having at least five years experience in leadership roles by July 3
The age eligibility cut-off has been set at no more than 58 years for internal candidates and 57 years for outsiders, with 60 years as
retirement age, according to the advertisement.
The ministry initially proposed allowing anyone who has not attained the age of 61 years to
be considered for the job
This made Vaidya eligible for the job
However, the proposal did not find favour with the Prime Minister's Office (PMO).
Thereafter, the government reverted to the old system of
appointing PSUs head with 60 years as the retirement age and invited the applications.
Prior to Vaidya, no chairman of a Maharatna PSU was
given an extension beyond 60 years in recent years
In fact, the government had last year denied Ranjan Kumar Mohapatra an eight-month extension as director (human resources) of IOC till his
superannuation age.
Existing rules for hiring board-level positions in PSUs allow consideration of candidature of an internal person with
at least two years of service left before retirement and three years in case of outside candidates.
PESB, in the June 14 notification for
the HPCL top job, said it interviewed the HPCL director for refineries Shunmugavel Bharathan and four executive directors of the company,
Anuj Kumar Jain, Subodh Batra, K Vinod and Sandeep Maheshwari
It also interviewed one executive director of IOC, GAIL and IGL managing director Kamal Kishore Chatiwal.
The board said it found none
suitable for the HPCL top job.First Published: Jun 16 2024 | 11:21 AMIST
