New Delhi:
Amidst plans to privatise one of the PSU general insurance companies,the ministry of finance(MoF) has shortlisted 10 senior general managers for selecting CMDs of two companies-National Insurance Company (NIC)and United India Insurance (UII).
Both Tajinder Mukherjee,CMD, NIC and Girish Radhakrishnan,CMD, UII will be retiring in June end after reaching 60.
The candidates who have been shortlisted are: Madhulika Bhaskar, GM, GIC Re, Suchita Gupta, GM, GIC Re , Surya Swaroop S Saxena,GM, Agriculture Insurance Company, Rajeshwari Singh, GM, AICL, SL Tripathy, GM, GIC Re, Inderjeet Singh, GM, New India Assurance(NIA), S Tuli(Nagpal), NIC, Rekha Gopal Krishna, GM, NIA, N Ramaswami, GM, currently heading UK operations of GIC Re, Neerja Kapur, currently heading UK operations of NIA.
All the candidates, who have been shortlisted, have residual services of two years and even some including Ramaswami and Kapur have more than four years.
The date for the interview of these candidates by Banks Board Bureau (BBB),the government’s head haunting agency for the top posts of PSU banks and general insurance companies,has not been announced yet.
Suchita Gupta was earlier was chosen as a standby candidate by the BBB for the post of CMD of Oriental Insurance Company(OIC) for which Anjan Dey, general manager, NIA was selected.
Effectively, rest of the nine candidates will be fighting for only one post out of two as Gupta will surely be selected for one of the posts by the BBB.
Both NIC and UII, along with Delhi based OIC, are currently facing severe financial challenges and are waiting for the capital infusion from the government to achieve mininimum solvency ratio of 1.5 per cnt.
Financial constraints coupled with government’s plans to privatise one of the PSU general insurers, though name of the company is yet to be finalised, has dampened enthusiasm of senior officials to head these companies.
“These companies are practically surviving on special supports provided by the GIC Re and regulatory forbearance allowed by the regulator IRDA and currently, one can’t do much business in these companies freely and nobody knows when government will announce one of the companies’ name to be privatised thereby abruptly ending the tenure of CMD,’’ said a senior official of the industry adding that candidates with long tenures may drop out from the interviews and wait for the vacancy at New India Assurance to happen in Feb 2022.
FY 2021-22 will see a lot of vacancies in public sector insurance companies including Life Insurnce Corporation(LIC).
Mr Kumar chairman, LIC will be retiring in June end. Vipin Anand MD,, LIC and Mukesh Gupta, MF , LIC will be calling it a day in July end and September end respectively.
Subhas Khuntia, chairman, IRDA will be completing his three-year term in May,
There is likelihood of Khuntia, who is 63 now, getting an extension till he reaches 65.
Atul Sahay, CMD, NIA and Raj Kumar, MD, LIC will be hanging their boots in February, 2022.
Currently, the MoF has advertised for the member,(Finance and Investment), IRDAI, after Pravin Kutumbe ended his three-year term on March 12.