Mumbai: A government-appointed selection panel has short-listed 15 general managers for appointment as 14 executive directors in various public sector banks, sources said on Wednesday.

The names of the GMs whose names have been short-listed include Harideesh Kumar of Vijaya Bank, Pawan Kumar Bajaj, RA Sankara Narayanan, NK Sahoo, Raj Kamal Verma and Charan Singh of BoI, Arvind Kumar Jain of OBC, Rishabh Lodha, Ravi Shankar Pandey and Ajit Kumar Rath of Union Bank, Ravindra P Marathe, KVR Moorthy and Kharat Kishor Piraji (BoB), Umesh Kuamr Singh of Central Bank and VK Shukla of Canara Bank.

The panel, headed RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, had interviewed 35 candidates on December 25 in New Delhi.

Interestingly, all the 33 GMs, who had earlier appeared for interview a year ago, attended again this time as the new government had cancelled all the earlier appointments, sources had said.

Following shortlisting by the high level panel, the names of the candidates would be sent to Finance Minister and subsequently to the Appointments Committee of Cabinet (ACC). In the mean time, the process for vigilance and other necessary clearances would be undertaken.

Interviews were conducted by the three sub-panels comprising Financial Services Secretary Hashmukh Adia and former SBI Managing Director S Vishvanathan among others.

The sub-committees had three outside experts. These experts were former Managing Director of State Bank of India (SBI) S Viswanathan, IIM Indore Director Rishikesha T Krishnan and S Panse, former Chairperson and Managing Director of Allahbad Bank, sources said.

Besides, other three members of screening committees were Department of Financial Secretary, Additional Secretary and an RBI Deputy Governor.

The selection process for Chairman and Managing Director and EDs the public sector banks was changed following government scrapping the selections made by previous UPA regime.

Government had last month appointed R Koteeswaran and Animesh Chauhan of BoI and Kishore Kumar Sansi of Punjab & Sind Bank as MDs and CEOs of IOB, OBC and Vijaya Bank, respectively.

It may be noted that following Syndicate Bank scandal under which its chairman and managing director SK Jain was arrested by CBI in a cash-for-loan scam, the government had decided to split the post of chairman and MD at public sector banks.

(PTI)