Manoj Jain selected to head GAIL

Manoj Jain, currently the Director (Business Development) at GAIL (India) Ltd, was on Friday selected by government headhunter PESB to helm India's biggest natural gas company.

The Public Enterprise Selection Board (PESB) picked Jain for the post of Chairman and Managing Director of GAIL, a maharatna PSU, after interviewing eight short-listed candidates, a notification from the headhunter said.

Jain, 57, will have term till August 2022 once his appointment is ratified by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The PESB notice said Jain was selected after interviewing eight shortlisted candidates, including Anjani Kumar Tiwari, Director (Finance), GAIL (India) Ltd and E S Ranganathan, Managing Director, IGL.

Others interviewed by PESB on Friday included two IAS officers, Manoj Kumar, Additional Chief Secretary of Tripura, and Jyoti Kalash, Additional Chief Secretary of Nagaland.

He will replace Bhuwan Chandra Tripathi, who was in July this year denied a third extension of service that would have taken him to his superannuation age.

Director (Projects) A Karnatak is currently officiating as acting-Chairman of GAIL.

Jain, who has much of his over three-decade long experience in projects, pipeline integrity management and marketing, was in June last year appointed Director (Business Development) of GAIL.

His appointment will be vetted by ACC after anti-corruption agencies clear his name, sources said explaining the procedure.

He is a Mechanical Engineering Graduate and MBA in Operations Management. Before being appointed as Director (Business Development), he was responsible for gas marketing activities in his role as Executive Director (Marketing-Gas).

"Jain also spearheaded the installation and commissioning of over Rs 10,000 crore grassroots petrochemical complex at Lepetkata Assam, as Chief Operating Officer of Brahmaputra Cracker and Polymer Ltd, (BCPL) which has been one of the fastest projects ever implemented in the North East of its size and magnitude," according to GAIL's annual report.