New Delhi:
The Banks Board Bureau (BBB), the recruitment body for selecting top officials of PSU banking and insurance companies, on Tuesday said it has selected Devesh Srivastava, 56, general manager, GIC Re as the CMD of the company.
Malay Kumar Podda, general manager, National Insurance Company)NIC), has also been selected as the CMD of Delhi based Agriculture Insurance Company(AIC).
Similarly, the BBB has selected Mukesh Gupta, executive director, Life Insurance Corporation and Raj Kumar, CEO, LIC Mututual Fund to fill up two vacant posts of managing directors at corporation.
According to the MoF sources, after the BBB's selection, the names have to be approved by the Appointments Committee of te Cabinet(ACC) and Prime Minister's Office(PMO) and finally appointment letters will be issued. in the name of the President of India, to these officials.
Poddar,basically an agriculture insurance expert, who has spent most of his carrear in AIC before moving to NIC in 2018, was the senior most official among the seven candidates who had appeared for the interview on Tuesday.Though, Shrivastava was the last but one in the list, according to the sources, BBB has chosen him because of his vast exposure to the core reinsurance operations over the years, He has also the longest residual services-four years- as his date of retirement is Sep 31, 2023
However, in case of LIC, BBB has picked up two senior most officials to be made MDs.
BBB has also named two other officials- DTV Sastri, GM, United India Insurance and SN Rajeswari, GM, New India Assurance(NIA) from the list of interviewed officials as reserve candidates for GIC Re and AIC respectively, who can replace the selected candidates in case it is necessary.
Similarly for the reserve list of LIC, BBB has names of C Vikas Rao, zonal manager, Western Zone, LIC and Dimesh K Pangtey, ED, LIC..
A panel constituted by Banks Board Bureau (BBB), headed by BB Sharma, had interviewed a few senior officials from the state owned general insurance companies and Life Insurance Corporation on Tuesday to select the two CMDs and two MDs of LIC.
Srivastava had joined Oriental Insurance Company(OIC) in July, 1987 as a direct recruit officer and has gathered a vast experience in reinsurance business after being shifted to GIC Re in July 1999.He is a post graduate in Physics from St Stephen's College Delhi. He subsequently obtained a post graduate degree in Management, majoring in Marketing with a Gold Medal from the Management Development Institute (MDI) Gurgaon
He was posted to the Reinsurance Department of GIC Re in 2008 for handling underwriting and claims of specialty lines of Motor, Marine, Liability, Oil & Energy, Aviation and Miscellaneous, in respect of both Treaty and Facultative placements and acceptances of inward business as well as outwards protection.
He was posted to the London branch of the corporation in October 2013 overseeing the territories of UK, Europe, Caribbean and the three Latin American countries of Argentina, Brazil and Mexico.
He had utilised this period in setting up of a Syndicate at Lloyds of GIC Re
As a GM, he was handling the portfolios of Retro Treaty and Facultative business (International), HR & Training, Health, Corporate Communications, Innovation Centre & Coordination Department at the GIC Re's head Office in Mumbai.
Poddar joined General Insurance Corporation of India, Mumbai, as a Generalist Officer in 1986.
Over the years, he has been associated with development and implementation of various Crop Insurance Schemes and products introduced by Government of India, GIC and AICI.
During his stint with AICI, he was involved with International Research Organizations, World Bank Group and major Global Reinsurers working in the field of climate change and risk management in agriculture. He has served as a Member of Task Force on NITI Aayog’s (National Institute for Transforming India) Crop Insurance Committee to fine tune Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), the current Indian national program on crop insurance.
He has Agricultural Economics as academic background and a Fellow of Insurance Institute of India.
Alice Vaidyan, CMD, GIC Re had retired on July 31 while T Alamelu, CMD, AIC was appointed as the member(non-life), IRDAI in July. Two posts of MDs at LIC had fallen vacant after B Venugopal and Hemant Bhargava had retired in May end and July end respectively. Both the companies are currently being managed by temporary arrangements.
The senior official of the state owned general insurance companies who were interviewed for the two top posts at GIC Re and AIC were– M Poddar, general manager(GM), National Insurance Company, Dinesh R Waghela, GM, Oriental Insurance Company,SN Rajeswari, GM, New India Assurance, DTV Sashtri, GM, United India Company,Deepak Prasad, GM, GIC Re , , Devesh Shristava, GM, GIC Re, and Balla Swami, GM, NIA.