Former oil secretary Tarun Kapoor who superannuated as secretary of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas on November 30, 2021, was selected to be chairman of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) after interviews of over a dozen candidates.
His candidature will now go to the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet for ratification and once approved, he would take over. 13 candidates, including former chairmen of ONGC and a former director of IOC, had applied for the top job at PNGRB. Out of these, the ministry shortlisted seven candidates. Interviews were held by a search-cum-selection committee headed by V K Saraswat, Member (S&T), Niti Aayog on Thursday, Jan 04, and Kapoor was picked for the top job.
Former Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) chairmen Subhash Kumar and Shashi Shanker as well as G K Satish, who superannuated as director for planning and business development from Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) a couple of months back, had applied for the top job. Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL) Managing Director Saumendra Kumar Barua and Indraprastha Gas Ltd (IGL) Managing Director Asit Kumar Jana were among those who had applied.
The shortlisted candidates for interview included Kumar, Satish, Barua, Jana, Virendra Nath Datt, OSD to the chairman of GAIL (India) Ltd, and former CPCL MD Surendra Nath Pandey. Former GAIL directors Gajendra Singh and A K Tiwari are currently the two members of the PNGRB.
