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Aviation
Raghu Menon gets Air India top job
ETW STAFF - Mumbai
After much speculation, Raghu Menon, special secretary and financial advisor
for the ministry of civil aviation, has been appointed chairman and managing
director of Air India.
The 1974-batch IAS officer's name was approved by the Appointments Committee
of the Cabinet following an intense race for the top job in the National Aviation
Company of India (NACIL), which runs the merged national carrier. Menon took
over from V Thulasidas, a recently-retired Tripura-cadre IAS officer.
The race for the post saw a total of 51 applicants, out of which nine were finally
selected. The choice for the job was a tough one; as a source put it "hectic
meetings were on throughout the day on Wednesday, before Menon's name was finalised."
With the selection of Menon, the future of favourite contender and currently
joint managing director of the carrier, Vishwapati Trivedi, is still unclear.
Trivedi's tenure as JMD also came to an end the same day as former CMD V Thulasidas,
who retired from government service in March. According to government sources,
Trivedi will most probably be shifted to another PSU.
Sources in the ministry said Menon's name came as a complete surprise as most
of the other contenders had one or more lobbies working within the UPA government
for them.
The race for the post at Air India also included the airline's current Joint
MD Vishwapati Trivedi, besides Arvind Mayaram of the Department of Economic
Affairs and Arvind Jadhav, chief vigilance officer of the Gas Authority of India.
Besides, names of several secretary and additional secretary-level officials
had been doing the rounds for the past few weeks as well.
Speculation is rife that Thulasidas could be given an extension of three months
as the non-executive chairman of the national carrier. Interestingly, sources
said a panel comprising six-odd names, was constituted and rubbished before
these four names were zeroed-in from another panel. Lobbying and political backing
for these candidates had been hectic.
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