Interviews for LIC's MD post to held on July 15

After the long delays, the government has finally decided to conduct interviews for filling up the vacant post of the fourth managing director of Life Insurance Corporation on July 15.

The post has been lying vacant since Sushoban Sarkar retired in May last year and five senior LIC officials including the CEOs of LIC Home Finance and LIC Nomura are appearing for the post.

Senior LIC officials who have been called for the interview include Sunita Sharma (chief executive, LIC Housing Finance), Saroj Dikhale (chief executive, LIC Nomura MF), Venu Gopal (zonal manager, West), Vinay Sah (marketing director), and Sharad Srivastava (executive director, Northeastern zone). Venu Gopal is the senior-most candidate who retirement is due in 2019.

The government couldn't go ahead with the interview as some senior LIC officials, who were not called for interviews as they were close to retirement age, faulted the government norms in shortlisting candidates for the interview.

"We had received some representation from some LIC officials who were supposed to be shortlisted for the post of the fourth MD but were not included. We waited till now as we were expecting some clarity emerged on the issue to complete the interview process and the interview will be conducted in the capital on July 15," a senior financial ministry official told PTI here today.

However, two officials -- Rajesh Khandwal (chief executive, LIC Bahrain) and Hemant Bhargava (zonal manager, East), who had earlier represented before the government, have not been called for the interview.

They were not included in the list of the candidates for the MD's post on the basis of an existing guideline which says that an official can appear for the interview for maximum thrice consecutively and both have exhausted the limit. Both the candidates had already appeared for the interview conducted for filling of the posts of three MDs in past, but couldn't be selected.

The top LIC management is headed by the chairman (SK Roy) and three MDs- SB Mainak, VK Sharma and Usha Sangwan. Except Mainak, all the three, including the chairman, belong to the 1981 batch and will be retiring in 2018.