(ET)
After keeping the post vacant for nearly a year, the government has constituted a search-cum-selection committee to appoint the managing director of ONGC Videsh Ltd, India’s flagship firm for acquisition of oil and gas assets abroad. Narendra K Verma, the previous managing director of OVL, retired on January 31, 2019, and the post has been lying vacant since then. In the absence of any full-time head, OVL did not make a single acquisition in 2019, records on the company website showed. The oil ministry has now invited applications for the post by February 6 which will be screened by the search-cum-selection committee, according to the notice inviting application.
The panel includes Oil Secretary M M Kutty, former Indian Oil Corp (IOC) Chairman M A Pathan, and Public Enterprise Selection Board (PESB) Chairman K D Tripathi. PESB is the designated government headhunter for selecting directors and heads of public sector companies. It routinely initiates the process of inviting applications at least six months prior to the post falling vacant but the same was not done in case of OVL in 2018.
