51 hats in the ring for AI’s top job: clerk to IAS who fixed Bangalore

A little over a fortnight after the Civil Aviation Ministry began the hunt for a new Chairman and Managing Director for the merged Air India...

A little over a fortnight after the Civil Aviation Ministry began the hunt for a new Chairman and Managing Director for the merged Air India to replace V Thulasidas who retires on March 31 this year, it has 51 applications to choose from. The contenders for the hot seat at the post-AI merger, the National Aviation Company of India Limited (NACIL), offer quite a variety ranging from advocates and lower division clerks to senior officials from the civil aviation ministry itself besides a bunch of prominent civil servants.

While at least 30 of the 51 applicants are not likely to make the cut — they include assistant accountants, retired professors, bank managers, factory in charges and civil judges — there are a host of serious contenders before the first screening a week from now.

They include IAS official K Jairaj, known for having turned around Bangalore city with his no-nonsense attitude under the S M Krishna government, to Arvind Mayaram, Joint Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs; Prabhat Chander Chaturvedi, DG, Employees State Insurance Corporation, formerly Uttar Pradesh Joint Secretary, Civil Aviation; Ranjan Chatterjee, Chief Secretary, Meghalaya and also formerly Joint Secretary in the Ministries of Civil Aviation and Defence; and S N Mohanty, Principal Secretary in the Andhra Pradesh government who shot to prominence as Hyderabad’s Municipal Commissioner under the Chandrababu Naidu government.

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Additional Director General of Border Security Force (BSF) Amar Pratap Singh, who has earlier done a stint as Vigilance Director in the pre-merger Indian Airlines and T Radha Krishnan, Principal Secretary, Tourism & Culture, Chhattisgarh are also among applicants.

In the race with them will be a couple of the Ministry’s own men with it sponsoring applications of Additional Secretary Raghu Menon; Vishwapati Trivedi, Joint MD and currently second in command at NACIL; and functional directors Anup Srivastava (Personnel), S Chandrashekhar (Finance) and Amod Sharma, Strategic Business Unit (SBU).

A surprise candidate is Capt N K Beri, Resident Director NACIL.

While eligibility conditions for the post require officials of the level of Additional Secretary in the government of India or its equivalent including Lieutenant General in the Army, equivalent posts in the Navy and the Air Force could be considered on deputation provided there was cadre clearance.

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The post is also open to applicants with technical/MBA qualifications and familiarity with commercial and financial operations in the air transport sector.

This seems to have drawn the large number of non-serious applicants like bank managers, HR managers and even Lower Division clerks, maintenance engineers, ground liaison officers from the Army, professors from universities and advocates.