The new head office of Chennai based United India Insurance, which was inaugurated by Union Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, virtually, on Friday

The DFS now has prepared a new list of five general managers(GMs)- BS Rahul, Agriculture Insurance Company(AIC), V Balkrishna and his spouse Jayshree Bala from GIC Re, Sunita Gupta and Rekha Solanki from Oriental Insurance Company(OIC) for selecting Tripathy’s successor at United India Insurance

This is for the first time that the DFS has tweak one of  its important eligibility criteria, because of shortages of eligible officials, where a GM needs to have two  years of experience, to be considered for a post of CMD in a PSU genera insurance company

New Delhi:

Significantly changing its earlier plan to select new CMDs for state owned United India Insurance(UII) and New India Assurance(NIA) together, the Department of Financial Services(DFS), under the Ministry of Finance, has now decided to only go for the UII.

The post of CMD has fallen vacant as Satyajit Tripathy has retired on Feb 29 after reaching 60,

The DFS now has prepared a new list of five general managers(GMs)- BS Rahul, Agriculture Insurance Company(AIC), V Balkrishna and his spouse Jayshree Bala from GIC Re, Sunita Gupta and Rekha Solanki from Oriental Insurance Company(OIC) for selecting Tripathy’s successor soon .

Except Rahul, rest have ben promoted as GMs just a few months back in FY 23-24. This is for the first time that the DFS has to tweak one of its important eligibility criteria, because of shortages of eligible officials, where a GM needs to have served at least for two  years, to be considered for a post of CMD in a PSU general insurance company.

However, all of them, whose names are there in the list, have two years of residual services, another eligibility criteria.

Rahul is the senior most official in the list followed by Jayashree Bala, V Balkrishna, Gupta and Solanki.

The DFS had practically sent `Consent Letters’ to all, more than a dozen, the officials, who had become GMs in FY 23-24, to know their options, before shortlisting five for the interview of UII CMD.

Rest have been informed that they are not required for the UII post.

The DFS, which had earlier shortlisted five general managers for selecting two CMDs(UII and NIA), has to drop its plans, as they couldn’t find two eligible candidates for the top post of  UII. Out of the five shortlisted candidates only Rahul of AIC was the only one who was available for UII whereas Prime Minister’s office (PMO) wants two names for any top posts for giving its approvals.

Government sources  point out that interviews for selecting UII CMD will be completed first followed by the interviews for filling up newly created posts of executive directors(EDs) in six PSU general insurance companies including AIC and GIC Re.

The FSIB, the headhunting agency for the posts above executive directors in the PSU banks and insurance companies, will soon announce a date for conducting series of interviews.

Meanwhile, the top post of NIA will fall vacant soon after Neerja Kapur completes her tenure in April end after reaching 60.