30-day deadline to fill senior posts in state-run banks

MUMBAI: The government has set a 30-day deadline to fill up all vacant senior executive positions at public sector banks, said Piyush Goyal, interim finance minister here on Friday. Currently, four state-run lenders have vacant chairman-level positions, while at least another eight banks are expected to see executive positions opening up shortly over the next few quarters.

“The Banks Board Bureau (BBB) has been given the task and within the next 30 days, we will man all the public sector banks filling vacant positions,” Goyal said.

Banks which have had no chief executive officers (CEO) include Andhra Bank, Dena Bank and Punjab and Sind Bank, while IDBI Bank’s top slot will fall vacant soon as its current chief Mahesh Kumar Jain would be departing to join as the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) Deputy Governor. Besides, Allahabad Bank is also headless with its CEO Usha Ananthasubramanian drummed out of office after being named in the Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) chargesheet pertaining to the $2 billion fraud at PNB.

Other banks like Canara Bank, Indian Bank, Syndicate Bank, Bank of Maharashtra and Uco Bank are also likely to see executive positions opening up as respective tenures of their CEOs end this year and the next.
Besides CEOs, there are positions to be filled up at the level of executive directors in at least a handful of banks and as per estimates the BBB is set to appoint about 30 senior managerial positions by the end of this month.