BBB Recommendations

The Banks Board Bureau (BBB) recommended names of Ashwini Bhatia, M V Rao and P P Sengupta for the post of managing director of three state-owned lenders — State Bank of India, Central Bank of India and Indian Overseas Bank, respectively.

Bhatia and Sengupta is currently serving as deputy managing director (DMD) at SBI, while Rao is executive director with Canara Bank.

Bhatia will be appointed in place of P K Gupta who superannuated on March 31, while Rao will replace Central Bank of India MD Pallav Mohapatra who will retire in February next year and Sengupta, will replace Indian Overseas Bank MD and CEO Karnam Sekar, who retires on June 30.

With this exercise, the government has completed the process of appointment of head of PSU banks for the current fiscal. The decision on the appointment will be taken by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

What is Banks Board Bureau (BBB)

BBB, the headhunter for banks and public financial institutions, is headed by former secretary of personnel and training B P Sharma. The BBB functions as a step towards governance reforms in public sector banks (PSBs), as recommended by P.J. Nayak committee. It is housed at the RBI headquarters in Mumbai. The BBB was part of the Indradhanush government plan.

In 2016, the Prime Minister approved the Constitution of the BBB as a body of eminent professionals and officials responsible for making recommendations for the appointment of full-time directors, as well as non-executive presidents of public sector banks (PSB), also responsible for dialoguing with the board of directors of all PSOs to formulate appropriate strategies for their growth and development.

In addition, it was asked to frame the discussion of the consolidation strategy according to the requirements. The government wanted to encourage banks’ boards of directors to restructure their business strategy and also suggest ways to consolidate them and merge with other banks.

The concept of BBB originated from the recommendations of the Committee for the Examination of the Governance of the Bank Councils in India, May 2014. Subsequently, on February 28, 2016, the Indian government announced the constitution and composition of the Board. The Bureau started functioning from April 01, 2016 as an autonomous recommendatory body.