PSEB holds back ONGC chairman selection list

Tussle with OilMin continues; PSEB yet to finalise list despite interviwing all 8 candidates

The selection of a new chairman for Indias most valuable navaratna,ONGC,has run into controversy with the governments head-hunter Public Enterprise Selection Board PSEB at loggerheads with the petroleum ministry over the shortlisting of candidates.

Sources said the ministry wants ONGC director offshore Sudhir Vasudeva as the frontrunner to head the state-run company. Pawan Hans chairman R K Tyagi is the ministrys second choice. However,the PESB has found Rabi Narayan Bastia the man credited for discovering Indias biggest gas field,Dhirubhai 1 as the most suitable candidate.

The stand-off has resulted in the PESB withholding the selection list even though the norm is to send the two-name panel the day the interview ends. All eight candidates had been interviewed by 4:30 pm,but the PESB deliberately did not finalise its list,sources said.

Petroleum ministry officials confirmed that the list had not been received till the time offices closed for the day,despite repeated reminders to the PESB.

Others who appeared for the interview included ONGC director finance D K Saraf,Oil India director exploration B N Talukdar,Jamp;K Development Finance Corp managing director A A Bhat,South Eastern Coalfields chairman M P Dikshit and three executive directors of ONGC and GAIL India combined.

While Vasudeva has the potential to put the derailed redevelopment of ONGCs ageing fields such as Mumbai High back on track,Bastia who quit ONGC in 1996 to join Reliance Industries Ltd has Dhirubhai-1,ranked the biggest gas find the world over in the last decade,under his belt.

Controversy had dogged the selection of current ONGC chairman R S Sharma after the Prime Ministers Office shot down the PESB list the first time round,but approved it after a Search-cum-Selection team selected Sharma a second time. Sharma retires on January 31,2011,on attaining superannuation at 60 years of age.

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Interestingly,petroleum minister Murli Deora on Monday chided ONGC for not discovering enough new reserves. He said that he will not accept a dividend cheque from ONGC as the company had not done enough to raise oil and gas output.