New Delhi:
Anjan Dey,57,director & general manager, GIC Re, on Monday, has been selected as the CMD of Delhi based Oriental Insurance Company(OIC) by the Banks Board Bureau (BBB),the official head hunting body for selecting the CEOs of state owned banks and insurance companies,
The BBB, chaired by Bhanu Pratap Sharma,former secretary, Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), and has Debasish Panda, secretary, department of financial services, as one of its panel members,has also selected Suchita Gupta, general manger, GIC Re as a stand-by candidate for the post.
“The members of BBB interfaced with five candidates on Jan 4 and keeping in view their performance in the interface and their overall experience, we have chosen Dey,''said BBB on Monday. .
Effectively, by becoming a reserved candidate for the post of OIC CMD, Guota has a bright chance to be selected as a CMD of another PSU general insurace company.whenever such a vacancy happens in future, said industry analysists..
Dey and Gupta along with three other candidates were virtually interviewed by the BBB on Monday.
The other shortlisted candidates who appeared for the interview for the OIC CMD post are – Shobha G. Reddy, general manager,National Insurance Company(NIC), M. Bhaskar, general manager GIC Re, Surya Swaroop Saxena, GM, Agriculture Insurance Company of India.
Dey has more than 34 years of experience in the Indian general insurance industry and belongs to 1986 batch of New India Assurance. He had also international postings in Aruba [ Dutch Caribbean] & Tanzania He has earlier worked with Tanzindia Assurance Company Ltd – Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania as its managing director.
The post of CMD in OIC has fallen vacant after SN Rajeswari, who was appointed in August, was chosen as the member,distribution,IRDAI, in November.
However Rajeswari is yet to join Hyderabad based insurance regulatory body as the ministry of finance(MoF) wants a new CMD to take charge of the company before she moves to the IRDAI.
The recommendation of BBB will be processed further by the MoF before it goes to the ACC(Appointments Committee of the Cabinet), headed by the Prime Minister for the final approval.
“Though, normally it takes more than two months for the all the procejures to be completed by the government before the appointment letter is issued, it is expected that it may be further be expedited as OIC, which has been facing severe financial challenges and has received capital from the government, need a stable CMD urgently to improve its performance,'' said MoF sources.
OIC with a combined ratio of 141 per cent had an underwriting losses of Rs 4,197 crore in 2019-20.
Even Dinesh Waghela, director and general manager, the senior most director in the PSU general insurance industry, has put in his papers.Three other general mangers of the company- Ajit Kumar, Atul Jairath and Anil Srivastav- one after another are retiring shortly.
FY 2021-22 will see large scale top level vacancies in the PSU insurance companies including Life Insurance Corporation(LIC) and the IRDA where Subhas Chandra Khuntia,63,chairman,will be completing his three-year tenure in May.
There will be new CMDs in three PSU general insurance companies starting with OIC to be followed at Kolkatta based NIC and Chennai based United India Insurance(UII) in June …
While both Tajinder Mukherjee, CMD, NIC and Girish Radhakrishnan, CMD, UII, will be retiring in June end, Atul Sahay, CMD, New India Assurance (NIA) will be calling it a day in Feb 2022.