Govt considering change in appointment rules for cos like IOC

The government is mulling over radical changes in its policy for appointment of heads of blue chip PSUs like Indian Oil Corp (IOC), where none of the existing directors on the company board is eligible to be promoted as chairman.

The government is considering relaxing the eligibility norm in cases where none of the directors meets qualifying criteria for being considered for the top job, and it becomes necessary to appoint either a junior or an outsider to head the company, an official said.

At present, to be eligible for the job of chairman, a person from within the company should not be even a day older than 58 years (should have at least two years of service left before he or she achieves the superannuation age of 60 years).

In situations where none of the functional directors have the minimum stipulated service period when the incumbent chairman retires or resigns from service, the Government may consider giving one of the directors a fixed two-year term as head of the company, irrespective of when he or she resigns, he said.

"The Department of Personnel and Training is considering amending rules to allow Government headhunter PESB to interview all the existing directors and offer the best among them a two-year term as chairman by suitably extending his or her retirement age," the official said.

If the change is approved, IOC would be benefitted because upon Sarthak Behuria's retirement as the company chairman, none of the directors had enough time left in service to be considered for the post.

Acting Chairman and Director (Business Development) B M Bansal is to retire on January 31 next year. Director (R&D) Anand Kumar would demit office by the month-end, followed by Director (HR) V C Aggarwal on August 31, Director (Finance) S V Narasimhan in April next year, Director (Refineries) B N Bankapur in August 2011, Director (Marketing) G C Daga in September that year and Director (Pipeline) K K Jha in January 2012.

If the change is approved, the need to hire a junior, who has not had a board experience, or an outsider would be eliminated in companies such as IOC, the official said.
A paper to effect the changes was under consideration of the DoPT, he said.

The eligibility for a person to be considered by the Public Enterprise Selection Board (PESB) from outside the company is a maximum age of 57 years or three years of service.