Hindustan Petroleum-owned petrol station (Image: Wikimedia Commons)
For the third time in as many years, the board has failed to find a qualified applicant for the top position at a state oil company. PESB, the government headhunter, turned down every applicant it interviewed for the position at Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. (HPCL).
Eight candidates, including a managing director of Indraprastha Gas Ltd (IGL) and a director on the HPCL board, were interviewed by the Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) on June 14 but were all rejected.
“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,” according to a notification issued by the PESB.
When current HPCL CMD Pushp Kumar Joshi retires on September 1, 2024, having reached the age of 60 superannuation, the position will become vacant.
Previously, the PESB had failed to identify a candidate for the top position at the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Indian Oil Corporation (IOC). This resulted in a retired executive taking over at ONGC and the incumbent in IOC being granted an extra year in office even after reaching superannuation age.
Nine candidates, including two current IAS officers, were interviewed by PESB on June 3, 2021, for the position of head of ONGC, the largest oil and gas company in India. However, it determined that Om Prakash Singh, the director of ONGC for technology and field services, Pomila Jaspal, the director of finance for Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd. (MRPL), and senior officials Avinash Joshi and Niraj Verma were not acceptable.
The ministry then formed a search-come-selection panel and appointed Arun Kumar Singh, who had left Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) after becoming sixty, to lead ONGC. Singh was not entitled to apply in the first instance, but the eligibility criteria was modified to let individuals over 60 to be considered. His term was granted to him, and it expires in December 2025.
Regarding IOC, PESB did not nominate a successor for Shrikant Madhav Vaidya, who was scheduled to retire in August 2023 upon turning sixty years old. This decision was made in May of last year. Arvind Kumar, managing director of Chennai Petroleum Corporation Ltd (CPCL), was one of the ten applicants that the panel examined.
This was followed by an unusual action. According to an official order dated August 4, 2023, Vaidya, who assumed leadership of India’s largest oil business on July 1, 2020, was “re-employed on a contract basis” for a period of one year “beyond the date of his superannuation i.e. with effect from September 1, 2023, till August 31, 2024.”
The Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) chairman position was open to applications this month, according to the oil ministry. The oil secretary and former HPCL chairman MK Surana are among the three members of the search-cum-selection committee, which will be led by the PESB chairperson.
By July 3rd, engineers, chartered accountants, and cost accountants with postgraduate management degrees from reputable universities and at least five years of leadership experience are invited to apply. According to the advertisement, 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 the retirement age.
At first, the ministry suggested that candidates who are younger than 61 years old could still be considered for the position. Vaidya was so qualified for the position. The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) did not, however, approve of the plan.
After that, the government accepted applications and went back to the previous procedure of designating PSU heads, with a retirement age of 60 years.
Before Vaidya, no Maharatna PSU chairman has received a recent extension of more than 60 years. In actuality, the government had refused to grant Ranjan Kumar Mohapatra an eight-month extension to serve as the IOC’s director of human resources until he reached superannuation age last year.
According to current PSU hiring policies, internal applicants with at least two years left until retirement or three years in the case of external candidates may be considered for board-level positions.
In the June 14 announcement on the HPCL top position, PESB stated that it conducted interviews with Shunmugavel Bharathan, the HPCL director for refineries, and four executive directors of the business: Anuj Kumar Jain, Subodh Batra, K Vinod, and Sandeep Maheshwari. Kamal Kishore Chatiwal, the managing director of IGL, GAIL, and one executive director of IOC were also interviewed.
None were deemed suitable by the board for the top HPCL position.