The Modi government is all set to overhaul the appointments of public sector chiefs and functional directors. In its efforts to expand the talent pool, the Govt. plans to hold interviews for all jobs of chairman and managing directors of a group of PSUs or directors for human resources and finance at the start of the year, by the Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) instead of looking for candidates for individual companies.
Based on the interview scores of the candidates, in this case serving officers, the headhunter, PSEB will make its recommendations to the government, who on their part, will appoint the candidates. Those scoring highest will get the company of their choice. With the interviews clubbed together, PESB has proposed to interview at least 16 candidates for a job, instead of 12 at present, which could further rise to five times the number of jobs on offer.
The PSUs are divided into schedule A and schedule B companies, with top companies such as IOC, NTPC, BHEL, ONGC, SAIL, NMDC etc. being a part of schedule A. Now all the posts will be advertised together and candidates for these companies will be recommended in one go, and those scoring highest will get the company of their choice.
The proposed age limit for candidates, is to be fixed at 55 for companies with a retirement age of 58 years and 57 where the board member retires at 60. A candidate can appear for upto four interviews in a year.
PESB chairman Rajiv Kumar, who will take over as election commissioner next week, played a significant role in these appointment reforms in his capacity as the establishment Officer.
