The facade of selection

Raisina Hill

 Last month, the finance ministry held interviews to select the chairperson of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard).

 Nothing unusual about it, except that a few hours before the interviews were actually held the government had made up its mind on the candidate it favoured to head Nabard.

 The interviews were scheduled to be held in North Block in the afternoon. But in the morning, Ranjana Kumar, the highly successful chairperson and managing director of Indian Bank, met the banking secretary, N S Sisodia.

 That meeting lasted for about half an hour. Soon thereafter, those in the know in North Block were reasonably certain that Ranjana Kumar would be the new chairperson of Nabard, the apex refinancing body for agriculture and rural development.

 Not surprisingly, one of the four candidates called for the interviews to be held later in the day decided not to attend the interview. He was K B L Mathur, joint secretary in the banking division of the finance ministry.

 Mathur did not cite any specific reason for his decision. But it would be fair to assume that being in the ministry has its advantages. And he must have known that the interviews to be held in the afternoon would be a charade and he might as well opt out of the show.

 The other three candidates were not so lucky. S K Hazra, a senior officer in the department of agriculture and cooperation, K Balasubramaniam, deputy managing director of Small Industries Development Bank, and Sudhir Kumar, an IAS officer who used to be the managing director of the Small Agri Farmers