Prasad to head panel on CEOs of AAI and airlines

cabinet secretary t r prasad has been asked to head the search committee to select chief executives for four key public sector companies in the civil aviation sectors — air-india, indian airlines, airport authority of india and pawan hans. civil aviation secretary a h jung and public enterprises selection board chairman t n nair would be the other members of the committee. the panel has been formed at the request of civil aviation minister shahnawaz hussain and the cabinet secretary has been urged to find chief executives for this committee as quickly as possible. since the normal pesb selection route might take time, a 'fast-track' system is likely to be adopted by the committee, civil aviation ministry sources said. avoiding delay has become essential since air-india's managing director m p mascarenhas has retired and the term of aai chairman d v gupta is coming to an end on december 31. the committee has been asked to find a chairman for air-india as the current incumbent, jung, is retiring from the post of civil aviation secretary at the end of february. jung has been holding additional charge of this key post. similarly indian airlines cmd sunil arora and pawan hans chief anurag goel, both joint secretaries in the civil aviation ministry, are also holding additional charge. it is understood that arora is likely to be given a full-term as chief of indian airlines and he would give up his other responsibility as joint secretary in the ministry. once the search committee completes the selection process, the civil aviation ministry will seek the approval of the appointments committee of cabinet before appointment of the four chief executives are formalised. earlier the government was not confident of finding full-term chief executives for air-india, indian airlines and pawan hans since disinvestment plans had been drawn for all these companies. now that disinvestment in these companies is a closed chapter for the time being, the search has begun in full earnest. selection of efficient ceos for air-india and indian airlines is crucial at this juncture since the global aviation industry is facing a major slump due to the impact of september 11 and the two psus are planning fleet expansion and replacement. right strategies have to be worked out in terms of fleet acquisition, marketing and route network revamp in order to survive the current challenges. deputy managing director j n gogoi is now functioning as 'acting' managing director of air-india while the situation is slightly different at indian airlines where arora has been functioning as cmd for more than a year. the process of selecting a chief for aai had started some months back but had to be kept on hold since anand darbari, former chief of cci, had gone to court. five years ago, darbari was selected for the aai top post but the central vigilance commission did not clear him due to corruption charges. while darbari went to court, the panel was scrapped and the selection process was started once again.

Prasad to head panel on CEOs of AAI and airlines

CABINET secretary T R Prasad has been asked to head the search committee to select chief executives for four key public sector companies in the civil aviation sectors — Air-India, Indian Airlines, Airport Authority of India and Pawan Hans.

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