IOC: PESB recommends no one for IOC top job

The Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) rejected all ten candidates it interviewed for the position of Indian Oil chairman on Tuesday and advised the petroleum ministry to pursue an alternative selection mechanism.

“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,” PESB said in a notification.

In 2021, PESB had similarly rejected all the candidates seeking the job of chairman at Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) and decided to set up a search committee. The search committee recommended Arun Singh, the retired chairman of BPCL, for the position of ONGC chairman in a rare instance of appointing someone above 60 to the top job at a state-run firm.

In case of Indian Oil, if a selection committee is formed, it will have the liberty to widen the pool of candidates that can be considered for the job. S M Vaidya, the current chairman of Indian Oil, retires in August.

Candidates interviewed on Tuesday included Chennai Petroleum managing director Arvind Kumar, Container Corporation finance chief Manoj Dubey, five executive directors of Indian Oil, an executive director of GAIL, and two senior officers of Indian Railways.