Government Invites Applications For Top Role At Hindustan Petroleum Corporation

The government has invited applications to fill the top position at Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd., using the search-cum-selection committee route for the second time this year to appoint the head of a state-owned oil company.

The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas is seeking engineers, chartered accountants, and cost accountants with postgraduate management degrees from leading institutions who have at least five years of leadership experience. The application deadline is Sept. 14, as per an advertisement on the ministry’s website.

The decision to use a search-cum-selection committee follows the Public Enterprises Selection Board rejecting all candidates interviewed for the HPCL top job in June. On June 14, the PESB interviewed eight candidates, including a director on HPCL's board and the managing director of Indraprastha Gas Ltd., but did not recommend any of them.

The search-cum-selection committee route provides flexibility in selecting candidates. The position of HPCL Chairman and Managing Director will become vacant on Sept. 1, 2024, following the retirement of the current CMD, Pushp Kumar Joshi, who will reach the superannuation age of 60. The committee may also recommend relaxing eligibility, age, and qualification criteria for outstanding candidates.

The minimum age for eligibility is 45 years, with internal HPCL candidates required to have at least two years of service left before reaching the retirement age of 60 and external candidates needing three years of residual service as of the date of vacancy.

Earlier this week, a similar search-cum-selection committee interviewed candidates for the top job at Indian Oil Corporation and submitted its recommendations to the oil ministry.

This comes after PESB, in May last year, failed to recommend a replacement for the current IOC chairman, Shrikant Madhav Vaidya, who was due to retire in August 2023 after turning 60. Vaidya, who became chairman of IOC on July 1, 2020, was granted a one-year extension beyond his superannuation, effective from September 1, 2023, until August 31, 2024.

With Vaidya's extension nearing its end, the search committee on August 11 interviewed around a dozen candidates, including some who did not meet the eligibility criteria but were considered based on merit.

This is not the first time the ministry has turned to a search-cum-selection panel. On June 3, 2021, PESB found none of the nine candidates, including senior bureaucrats Avinash Joshi and Niraj Verma, suitable to lead ONGC. Consequently, the ministry formed a search-cum-selection panel that appointed Arun Kumar Singh for a three-year term ending in December 2025.

Under current rules, internal candidates for board-level positions in public sector undertakings must have at least two years of service left before retirement, while external candidates must have at least three years of residual service.

(With inputs from PTI)