Govt wants A-I MD in 30 days

NEW DELHI: The government is likely to allow top corporate executives to be considered for the post of managing director of Air-India. Government is planning to advertise the post and allow open competition.
Civil aviation ministry has written to the Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) to find a chief executive for Air-India within a month, highly-placed government sources said.
The post has been vacant since the retirement of the last full-time managing director, M P Mascarenhas.
PESB has been urged to set up a search committee for this purpose, the sources said.
This step has been recommended by the ministry to avoid delays.
PESB also has the option of drafting a shortlist of candidates on its own and call them for interview. Though the ministry has set a time-frame of one month for completing the selection process, it is estimated that the search would take at least two months.
The idea of looking for talent from the corporate sector follows the recent government selection of power secretary from the private sector. Air-India is now being headed by acting managing director J N Gogoi who has been given a series of three-month extensions. Since the Appointments Committee of Cabinet (ACC) is unhappy with such extensions, the ministry is now pushing for appointment of a full-time managing director.
Mr Gogoi, the only deputy managing director of the airline, has been officiating as the managing director since the exit of Mr Mascarenhas. Civil aviation secretary K Roy Paul is the part-time chairman of the airline.
In a related move, the ministry has decided to recommended premature repatriation of A-I chief vigilance officer S P S Yadav. An IPS officer from Maharashtra, Mr Yadav has two more years to go before his deputation with the airline comes to an end.
The decision to shift him out is understood to be in view of the recent spate of bickering within Air-India which also involved an FIR being filed against the commercial director V K Verma.
The civil aviation ministry was earlier evaluating the appointment of Sanat Kaul, a joint secretary in the ministry, as the officiating managing director of the airline. However, it has now been decided to nominate him as India’s representative at the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). PMO has cleared his nomination, ministry sources said.