In a surprise move, public sector general insurance major Oriental Insurance Company ltd rejigged its senior management positions, just two days before the exit of its Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) whose term ended on June 30, 2016. Around 22 senior management executives across India were elevated from the rank of Manager (Scale-IV) to Chief Manager (Scale-V), while massive transfers of executives also occurred on the same day of CMD’s exit. The insurer claimed that it was a move to consolidate human resource (HR) system of the organisation, while sources in the know said that it was ‘undue and untimely’ promotions and transfers which raised many an eyebrow among the staff of the organisation.
Oriental Insurance Chairman and Managing Director AK Saxena (now former) of Oriental Insurance Company, who was entangled in various controversies including brokerage scam in his tenure, had to serve his last day on June 30. But the cheering news came surprisingly on June 28 with an order of pan India promotions for some select top executives, and similarly an order of transfers was issued on June 30 for some, putting a big question mark in this sudden and hasty move.
According to the sources, “The promotion exercise of officers was conducted in haste in which the deserving candidates were not promoted in the said exercise. Also, some officers were issued the transfer order though they have not completed minimum number of years in one place. Surprisingly, Saxena did this exercise on the date of his retirement, ie; June 30.”
When contacted to verify the details of development, Sexena was not available for comments but a senior official in-charge said the allegations were baseless and framed.
Denying such baseless allegations, Sujoy Banerji, General Manager (Personnel) of Oriental Insurance who is also current in-charge of CMD said, “It is easy to point fingers at any development in the public sector organisations. As far as promotions as well as transfers are concerned, the company duly followed its policy and acted on it accordingly. As the promotions were pending, the Chairman cleared it before his term ended. The move was to consolidate and strengthen the HR system of the organisation.”
The sources, however, said, “Apart from promotions some deliberate transfers of officers also occurred in a hurry. Due to such massive transfers, the insurer will bear the cost of around Rs 70-80 lakh from company’s transfer contingency fund.”
As far as the promotion exercise is concerned, the order issued by the insurer, a copy of which is in possession with The Pioneer, had two lists of names selected for promotion - Main & Reserved list and Contingency list. The order stated that the officers were selected for the promotion from the cadre of Scale IV (Manager) to Scale V (Chief Manager) subject to the provisions of the ‘Promotion Policy for Officers-2006’. “Promotion shall be effective from the date of officer taking charge of the promoted post at the place /office/department where he/she is posted,” it said.
On contingency list of officers, it added, “The officers selected in the contingency list will be offered promotion in order of their ranking only against refusal of offer of promotion by any officers selected in main and reserved list. The unutilised portion of the contingency list would lapse on March 31, 2017, without carrying any preferential treatment in any subsequent promotional exercise.”