Indian Oil Chairman: PESB recommends no name; Vaidya may get extension

New Delhi: The Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) held interviews for the position of Indian Oil Corporation’s (IOC) Chairman on Tuesday but did not pick anyone for the position. Interestingly, the list of shortlisted candidates for the position included some strong contenders. The PESB has instead asked the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas to constitute a search-cum-selection committee (SCSC) for the selection of a candidate for the top position. PSU Watch has also learnt from sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity that Indian Oil’s current Chairman SM Vaidya is likely to get an extension.

CPCL MD, IOC ED Sandeep Jain among candidates interviewed on Tuesday

The PESB interviewed a total of 10 candidates for the position of Indian Oil Chairman. The list included CPCL MD Arvind Kumar, five Executive Directors (ED) from within Indian Oil — Sandeep Jain, Anna Durai, Sailendra Kurumaddali, Sanjay Parashar and Gur Prasad — CONCOR Director (Finance) Manoj Kumar Dubey, Rajeev Kumar Singhal, ED at GAIL, Yatendra Kumar, AGM at Indian Railways Service of Electrical Engineering and Ranjan Prakash Thakur (IRTS).

According to sources, the strongest candidate on the list was Kumar, under whose tenure CPCL witnessed a turnaround in profits. In FY 2019-20, CPCL had registered a net loss of Rs 2,078 crore which zoomed to a net profit of Rs 238 crore in FY 2020-21 and Rs 1,342 crore in FY 2021-22 before rising by 163 percent again to Rs 3,534 crore in FY 2022-23. Kumar had taken over as Managing Director of CPCL in August 2021.

Another strong contender on the list was Jain, ED at IOCL. He was the only shortlisted candidate on the list who had worked in two divisions, marketing and business development and gas.

Late in the evening on Tuesday, PESB published the results of the interview in which it said, “The board did not recommend any candidate and advised the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas to take an appropriate course of further action, including Search-Cum-Selection Committee (SCSC) or as deemed appropriate for the selection with the approval of the competent authority.”

SM Vaidya to continue as Indian Oil Chairman?

Vaidya is set to superannuate on August 31 this year. However, sources said that he is likely to receive an extension. “The matter will now be referred to the Petroleum Ministry to form a search-cum-selection committee. And it is very likely that Vaidya might get an extension,” said one of the two sources quoted above.

Vaidya took over as Director (Refineries) of Indian Oil in October 2019. Within a year, he was appointed as Chairman of Indian Oil in April 2020.

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