Kapur Likely To Be Vijaya Bank Chairman

The Union finance ministry is believed to have cleared the name of M S Kapur, executive director, Syndicate Bank as chairman of Vijaya Bank, while Michael Bastian, executive director, Vijaya Bank, will head Indian Overseas Bank (IOB).

IOB chairman S C Gupta will move to Syndicate Bank as its new chairman.

By clearing these appointments, the government has reversed the recommendations of the appointments committee which had earlier zeroed in on A K Khandewal (executive director (ED), Bank of Baroda) to head Vijaya Bank chairman and M Venugopalan (executive director, Union Bank of India) to head Syndicate Bank.

Six executive directors were interviewed for the two posts on December 28, 2001. This was a departure from the usual practice of selecting a chairman and managing director (CMD) based on his seniority.

Apart from Khandelwal, Venugopalan, Kapur and Bastian, O N Singh (ED, Bank of India) and K K Chopra (ED, Oriental Bank) attended the interview.

This decision of the committee to elevate Khandelwal and Venugopalan ran into rough weather as the Union finance ministry got representations from the minorities commission and the Bahujan Samaj Party challenging the appointments.

The committee, which met earlier this month, again upheld its decision and left it to the Centre to take a decision in this regard.

The government took a close look at the recommendations of the appointments committee and decided to elevate the existing EDs of Vijaya Bank and Syndicate Bank to the top post