Lobbying by civil servants and Indian Navy officers has delayed the process of selecting a new Chairman and Managing Director for Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Ltd as India’s biggest defence shipbuilder braces up for a prestigious tender to construct six Air-Independent Propulsion (AIP)-capable diesel-electric submarines locally through technical collaboration with a foreign original equipment manufacturer in a deal potentially worth some Rs45,000 crores.
Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders is without a full-time CMD after Vice Admiral Narayan Prasad, Indian Navy (Retd), superannuated on 31 January this year.
The Ministry of Defence, which controls Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders, has entrusted Sanjeev Singhal, the company’s Director (Finance), with the additional charge of CMD.
Typically, the Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB), the government’s headhunter, advertises for the post of director or CMD of a state-run firm, at least 8-10 months before the post falls vacant.
The PESB, though, is yet to advertise for the role of CMD, Mazagn Dock Shipbuilders, despite initiating preliminary work on the process in February 2022.
Some key changes to the job description (JD) pertaining to educational qualification and experience criteria for potential candidates have delayed the start of the process to pick a new chief executive for Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders, multiple sources briefed on the matter said.
The Ministry of Defence “suggested some major changes” to the job description (JD) for the role when the draft JD was sent for its approval, a government source said.
For Central government candidates, other than internal candidates of the company, the Defence Ministry suggested that joint secretary or equivalent rank officers should also be considered for the role instead of the original plan to allow only additional secretary or equivalent rank officers to apply.
Besides, the residual service period requirement for external candidates, particularly, additional secretary, vice admiral, rear admiral and commodore should be reduced to two years from three years as a one-time exemption, the Defence Ministry suggested.
The residual service period of three years set by the government for all other external candidates was retained.
In the case of internal candidates, the residual service period for applicants is two years, according to the guidelines followed by the PESB for selection.
These major changes in the job description cannot be implemented unilaterally by the PESB and needed approval from the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC).
The Department of Defence Production in the Ministry of Defence took approval from the ACC on the major changes in the job description, which entailed time.
Based on this, a draft JD was prepared and sent to the Defence Ministry.
In the meanwhile, the PESB revamped the eligibility criteria for the role of CMD’s of state-run firms.
Under the new guidelines, the PESB standardised the eligibility criteria for CMD’s post and this needed fresh approval from the ACC.
The new rules included post-graduation as one of the educational qualification criteria along with engineering graduate, Chartered Accountant, Cost Accountant, or graduate with MBA or PGDM.
On the experience side, those applying for the role should have spent five of the last ten years in finance, business development, production, operation, marketing and, in some cases, HR also.
The PESB will advertise for the post after receiving concurrence from the Department of Defence Production on the revised draft JD which incorporates the major changes to educational qualification and experience criteria.
“The whole exercise to allow joint secretary or equivalent rank officers to apply and to prune the residual service period for additional secretary, vice admiral, rear admiral and commodore to two years is intended mainly to facilitate candidates from the Indian Navy,” the government source added.
