New Delhi: In what seems like a case of appointment paralysis, as many as 42 Central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) are lying headless as posts of chairman and managing directors (CMDs) and managing directors (MDs) have not been filled up since the past almost one year.
According to highly-placed sources, the process for filling up these posts got stalled after the government in June 2016 had amended a 1987 resolution related to Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB, which is the head hunter for CPSEs), allowing candidates from private sector companies to apply for these posts. Owing to this, it became unclear as to what would be the criterion for selecting chiefs of various Schedule A, B, C and D CPSEs.
Sources confirmed that the 42 vacant posts of CMDs and MDs was pertaining to information available till February 28, 2017. Many of these state-owned entities also include quite a few Maharatna corporations, they added.
The government with the aim of enlarging the spectrum of CPSEs and enabling them to utilise the domain expertise coming from the private sector and state PSUs, as well as to augment competition, had on June 10, 2016 amended the March 1987 resolution related to PESB, allowing consideration of candidates from private sector and state PSUs, for board level posts of CPSEs. This however created a lot of confusion within PESB as to what set of rules need to be applied for candidates coming from the private sector. Subsequently this led to a kind of an appointment paralysis as hardly any appointments have been made since the resolution was amended in June last year.
Sources within PSUs cautioned that the selection process needs to be expedited and clarity is required regarding the rules after the amendment of the 1987 order, so that no confusion prevails. With several key CPSEs, including the Maharatnas remaining headless, it severely hampers their decision making and policy planning and in the long run it reflects poorly in their finances.
While industry watchers term the situation as grim with 42 CPSEs functioning without proper chiefs, official sources on their part cite various reasons for the vacancies have persisted for so long, like certain entities having turned into loss making ventures, scrapping of selection panels and even ridiculous ones like non-availability of suitable candidates and lack of finalisation of job description.
