New Delhi:
The centre has finally appointed MR Kumar, 57, Zonal Manager(ZM), Delhi, as the chairman of the Life Insurance Corporation.
In a late evening announcement, the Department of Personnel and Training( DOPT), along with Kumar's name as chairman, has also notified the appointment of TC Suseel Kumar, ZM, Hyderabad, Vipin Anand as the managing directors of the corporation.
“The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC ) and PMO had approved the three names last week, before the election schedules for the country's general election were announced on Sunday and DOPT has taken time to notify the top level appointments of the corporation,’’ said sources at MoF.
The government has stuck to the principle of seniority while appointing Kumar as the chairman of the LIC while in the appointment of MDs, K Ganesh has been superceeded by Suseel Kumar and and Vipin Anand. Even,.Vipin Anand, whose seniority is next to MR Kumar has been supeceeded by Suseelkumar.
In the new hirarchy among the top officials of the corporation, Suseel Kumar has been named next to MR Kumar and can become MD against the existing vacancy while Vipin Anand has to wait till March 30 when second post of MD will fall vacant after Sunita Sharma retires.
Though Ganesh K is the senior most ED of LIC, he couldn't be considered for the post of chairman of the corporation, as he didn't have two of residual services when the post of the chairman had fallen vacant on Dec 30 after the retirement of VK Sharma..
This is also the second time in the last 18 years when an executive director has been directly appointed as the chairman, on par with a secretary of the Government of India with , of the corporation.Kumar will be in pay scale of Rs 2,25,000.
The earlier instance was, when GN Bajpai, executive director,was appointed as the chairman of the corporation in 2000.
MR Kumar and Vipin Anand belong to 1983 batch of LIC while Susheelkumar belong to 1984 batch.
Currently, post of chairman and one post of MD out of four are vacant in the corportation and another one will fall vacant soon when Sunita Sharma will be retiring on Mar 30.
The post two MDS will also fall vacant in couple of months as B Venugopal and Hemant Bhargava will be retiring in May 2019 and July 2019 respectively.
.
For the first time, the Banks Board Bureau (BBB), that selects MDS and CEOs of the PSU banking sector, had interviewed eight senior officials of the state-owned Life Insurance Corporation(LIC),in the rank of executive directors(ED), on Jan 4,to select the new chairman and two managing directors for the corporation
The senior officials, who were called for the interview, with over two years of residual services and in order of seniority, are- K. Ganesh, ED, Customer Relationship Managemen tCRM), M R Kumar Zonal Manager(ZM), Delhi, Vipin Anand Zonal Manager, Mumbai, TC Suseelkumar, ZM, Hyderabad, MK Gupta ED, Personnel. Raj Kumar CEO, LIC Mtual Fund , HS Sasikumar, ZM,Bhopal, S Nallakuttalam.
After the interview the ministry of finance had short listed four names, Kumar, Anand, Suseelkumar and Raj Kumar for the chairmanship of the corporation.