Appointments board to screen eight EDs for top bank jobs

The appointments board of the finance ministry will meet eight executive directors (EDs) of public sector banks (PSBs) on March 4 to identify successors to several bank chairmen who would be stepping down over the next few months.

M Balachandran, executive director (ED) of Bank of India; K C Chakarbarthy, ED of Punjab National Bank; H A Daruwalla, ED of Oriental Bank of Commerce; M V Nair, ED, Dena Bank; K V Ramkrishnan, ED of Bank of Baroda; B Sambamurthy, ED, Indian Bank; P Subbarao, ED, Punjab & Sind Bank; and Ashok Dugade, ED of Bank of Maharashtra will be interviewed by the board.

The chairmen and managing directors (CMDs) of five PSBs retire in 2005. The chief of Bank of Baroda exits in February; Oriental Bank of Commerce, Punjab National Bank and Bank of India CMDs in April and the Central Bank of India CMD in June.

The post of chairman at the Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI) has also been lying vacant since incumbent M Damodaran has been made chief of the market watchdog, Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi). However, appointments at IDBI are outside the ambit of the appointments committee.

Earlier, the government had cleared the promotions of Prithviraj, ED at United Bank of India as CMD at Oriental Bank of Commerce; S C Gupta, CMD of Indian Overseas Bank, as chief at Punjab National Bank and Anil Khandelwal, CMD at Dena Bank, as chief of Bank of Baroda. The government may take a fresh look at these appointments, sources said.

Punjab National Bank, BoB and OBC are tapping the markets at time when their CMDs are superannuating.

That is why the government may want to retain an insider at the top post. For instance, with S S Kohli retiring as CMD from PNB, executive director Chakraborty may get a promotion to the top.

Similarly, B D Narang of OBC may be replaced by the bank's ED when he retires. Khandelwal, being the former ED of BoB, knows the bank well and, hence, there may not be any change in this case.