Autonomy be damned, says oil ministry

Normally, the procedure is that when a director like Soni retires, the Public Enterprise Selection Board (PESB) calls for interviews, finalises a short-list of two, from which the final selection is made by the government. In this case, the PESB is to be given the go-by.

The ministry has moved a file recommending that Atul Chandra who currently heads ONGC’s overseas operations through an independent company, ONGC Videsh, be put in charge of operations and that this be ratified by the PESB at a later date, if necessary. While ministry sources are justifying this by pointing out that Chandra is an old ONGC hand, his track record of new finds as ONGC Videsh’s chief is hardly exciting as there have been few tangible finds during his tenure — in any case, judging a candidate’s merit through an open competition is usually the prerogative of the PESB. What’s even more shocking, the ministry’s move comes without ONGC even being consulted on its choice for Soni’s job. The file is likely to be approved by secretary S. Narayan over the next couple of days.

And what’s even more shocking, Narayan has got himself appointed as the chairman of Petronet LNG, which is not even a government company — oil sector PSUs such as ONGC, IOC and GAIL and power sector NTPC are promoters of Petronet, and the idea of forming such a company which would be in the dedicated business of LNG, was that it would be totally independent of the government. Having Narayan as the chairman is then the ministry’s way of saying that, non-government or not, it will call all the shots in the firm.

Narayan’s new job is being justified by arguing that since the PSUs are fighting amongst themselves — NTPC, at one time, for instance, wanted a larger stake — it helps to have a neutral chief. That, however, is a specious argument since Petronet LNG is meant to be a board-run firm and has a head anyway. Interestingly, in the past, the government had decided never to have the secretary on the board of any PSU as this created a problem. If a secretary is on a board of a PSU, then he is party to any decision taken by it, and therefore cannot question it in his capacity as the petroleum secretary. But with Narayan now heading Petronet LNG, it would be interesting to see how he does justice to his main job, that of secretary petroleum.