Rajarshi Gupta has been selected on 15 March to head ONGC Videsh Ltd, the overseas investment arm of India's top oil and gas producer.
Government headhunter Public Enterprise Selection Board (PESB) choose Gupta, who is currently executive director at Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), after interviewing six candidates, according to a PESB notification.
He will succeed Alok Kumar Gupta, the current Managing Director of ONGC Videsh Ltd, who is slated to superannuate on 30 June. The PESB recommendation will now be sent to the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) headed by the Prime Minister, after obtaining clearance of anti-corruption bodies like CVC and CBI.
Gupta will be appointed MD, OVL once the ACC approves his candidature. Besides Gupta, PESB interviewed Sanjeev Tokhi, Director (Exploration), OVL, Anand Gupta, Additional Director General, ONGC and Vishal Shastri, Executive Director, ONGC.
Container Corporation of India Ltd (Concor) Director (Finance) Manoj Kumar Dubey and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) general manager Kartikeya Sinha too were interviewed, the PESB notification said.
OVL is the nation's flagship overseas oil and gas exploration and production company. It has stakes in 35 oil and gas assets in 15 countries and produced about 30.3 percent of oil and 23.7 percent of oil and natural gas of India's domestic production in 2019-20.
