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Country's largest public sector oil and gas explorer Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) will get its new full time chairman and managing director (CMD) this week.

Sources in the government said that (Public Enterprise Selection Board) PESB, which is holding interviews to select a replacement for Shashi Shanker who retired March-end this year, will select the new head for ONGC on Friday, June 4.

Since April, Subhash Kumar, director for finance and senior most director on ONGC board, has been given additional charge of CMD, ONGC.

PESB has shortlisted 10 candidates for selection of head of the oil and gas major including two Assam-Meghalaya cadre 1994 batch IAS officers Avinash Joshi and Niraj Verma. Both are currently principal secretaries in Assam.

Other shortlisted candidates include, Pomila Jaspal Director, Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL); OP Singh Director ONGC; Sandeep Gupta, Pankaj Kumar & ON Gyanni, all EDs, ONGC; Anand Gupta ADG, ONGC; Ajay Agarwal, Director, Security Printing and Minting Corp of India Ltd (SPMCIL); MK Dubey, director, CONCOR.

The appointment process for ONGC has got delayed as the selection board PESB did not have a chairman till April this year when Mallika Srinivasan, chairman and managing director of Tractors and Farm Equipment (TAFE) Ltd, was given the position.

In normal times, selection process of the head of a PSUs begins much before the retirement of sitting CMD so that there is continuity in the succession plan at the helm of a company.