Senior officials in race for IRDAI chairman post

Heavyweight retired and current bureaucrats and a few insurers have applied for the post of chairman of Insurance Regulatory & Development Authority of India (IRDAI). The post has fallen vacant after Subhash C Khuntia, a former chief secretary of Karnataka, ended his three-year term on May 6.

Among the serving and retired IAS (Indian Administrative Service) officials who have applied for the top regulatory job of the Indian insurance industry include BVR Subrahmanyam (1987 batch) who recently joined as secretary, Ministry of Commerce after having served as a chief secretary of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) since 2018, Manoj Parida (1986 batch)), advisor to the administrator of Chandigarh, VP Joy (1987), chief secretary, Kerala, Chhabilendra Roul (1985), former secretary, Department of Fertilizers, Ministry of Fertilizers and Chemicals, Preeti Sudan, (1983-batch) who had retired as the union health secretary in July 2020, Anup Wadhawan, who will be retiring by the month-end.

Wadhawan's name is talked about as one of the leading candidates, as he had a stint in the Department of Financial Services (DFS) earlier as a joint secretary in charge of insurance sector and was also an acting chairman of PFRDA, the pension regulatory body, industry sources say. Another name which is doing the rounds in the government circuit for the IRDAI chairmanship is Injeti Srinivas, who is currently the chairman of International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA), located in GIFT City, Ahmedabad.

A 1983-batch IAS officer, Srinivas is a former union secretary of ministry of corporate affairs (MCA) and was appointed as first chairman of IFSCA by the Modi government for a period of three years in July 2020. Also, he was instrumental in pushing through significant reforms in the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) and the Companies Act.

Coming on the candidates from the industry, the name of the best performing CMDs in the public sector general insurance companies is rumoured to have identified by the high-level search committee for the post.

LIC chairman MR Kumar, who has got one-year extension of late, has also applied for the post of IRDAI chairman's post. The other names from the industry that are doing the rounds for the post include Rajesh Relan (former head of PNB Metlife who is currently the CMD of Ecomoney Insurance) and SS Gopalarathnam (MD of Chola MS GI), the sources added. The date for the interaction to be held for the post is yet to be decided by the government.