(ET)
Shrikant Madhav Vaidya will steer India’s largest state-run oil refiner and fuel retailer IndianOil as the oil industry grapples with an unprecedented market volatility and demand crash due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Cabinet’s appointments panel on Tuesday cleared Vaidya, 56, currently director (refineries) in the company, as the next chairman. He will succeed Sanjiv Singh, who demits office on June 30, sources said.
A chemical engineer from National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, Vaidya has 33 years of experience in refining and petrochemicals operations. He steered the rollout of BS-VI grade auto fuels ahead of time in the NCR and introduced projects to expand greener options with biofuel and ethanol-blended fuels in refineries. Government headhunter PESB had on December 12 recommended Vaidya, 56, as the next chairman of the company after interviewing three other directors — Ranjan Kumar Mohapatra, SSV Ramkumar, Sandeep Kumar Gupta — and Rahul Bharadwaj, who is an executive director.
