Lobbying intensifies for post of Director General, Hydrocarbons

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In the event, last Saturday, Vajpayee promised Vazhappady that he would look into the matter again — Vajpayee first rejected the ministry’s proposal three weeks ago, pointing out that appointing Chandra would be improper for a variety of reasons.

Interestingly, Vazhappady is asking Vajpayee to implement the recommendations of a search committee which was made over 30 months ago and is clearly invalid today — no panels areever valid for such a long period. Worse, while the panel had recommended three names for the post in 1995, two of them B K Trehan and S Srinivasan — retired two years ago. That leaves only Chandra in the fray — though Chandra has been the acting Director General of Hydrocarbons for the past three years, he has not been confirmed in the job.

Sources in Petroleum Ministry also point out that when the post of Director General Hydrocarbons was first advertised in 1994, and the three-member search committee set up under the stewardship of G V Ramakrishna made its recommendations, the job was meant to be for an officer of a joint secretary’s rank. Obviously, then, the number of people who applied for the job was limited.

In 1997, the Ministry of Petroleum recommended that the post be upgraded to that of a secretary and the Personnel Ministry approved of this. Logically then, the post should have been advertised again, and a new search committee set up to select the candidates. Had the job been advertisedagain, a lot many more senior people would have obviously applied for it since it has now been upgraded.

Several of the chief executives in various public sector oil companies, for example, may like to apply for the job since they are currently of additional secretary rank while this job offers a higher rank. The ministry, however, is not too keen to advertise the post, but continues to push for appointing Chandra to the job.

The Director General Hydrocarbons is meant to be the ultimate authority in charge of the country’s hydrocarbon reserves, and it is his job to ensure that the country’s precious reserves are properly exploited. The DGH, for example, will decide if a company is over-exploiting reserves, or damaging wells. The DGH, since it is essentially a technical body, will also have an important role in decision-making for privatising the country’s oil reserves through various bidding rounds.