New Delhi: The government has constituted a three-member search-cum-selection committee to find a new chairman of Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), the nation’s biggest oil company.
The panel will be headed by the government headhunter Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) chairperson and will include the oil secretary as a member, an official order said.
Former Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) chairman M K Surana is the third member on the committee.
No timeframe has been set for the selection of the new head.
The government in August gave a one-year post-retirement extension to IOC’s incumbent chairman Shrikant Madhav Vaidya - a rare event for anyone on the board of a state-owned company.
Vaidya, who took over as the chairman of Indian Oil Corporation on July 1, 2020, was to retire after attaining the superannuation age of 60 years at August-end.
But he has been a “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, or till the appointment of a regular incumbent to the post, or until further orders, whichever is the earliest,” an official order dated August 4 had said.
This is one of the very rare occasions when a director on the board of a PSU has been given an extension of service beyond his retirement age.
No chairman of a Maharatna PSU has been given an extension beyond 60 years in recent years. In fact, the government had earlier this year denied Ranjan Kumar Mohapatra an eight-month extension as director (human resources) of IOC till his superannuation age.
The oil ministry recommended an extension of service for Vaidya after Public Enterprises Selection Board in May did not make any recommendation for the next chairperson of IOC after interviewing 10 candidates, including Chennai Petroleum Corporation Ltd (CPCL) managing director Arvind Kumar.