Indianmandarins reliably learns that there is a thinking in the government to extend by six months the services of GAIL CMD Bhuvan Chandra Tripathi. His present extended-term as CMD ends on July 31, 2019. In case he gets extension for six months he will continue as CMD till 31 January 2020 (when he completes 60 years of age).

It may be mentioned that the outgoing UPA-II Govt, in October 2013, had given him an additional five-year term ending July 31, 2019. At the time when the outgoing UPA-II Govt denied extensions to several oil PSU heavy-weights like Subir Raha of ONGC, P Banerjee of GAIL, Sarthak Behuria of Indian Oil Corp (IOCL) and Ashok Sinha of BPCL, Tripathi’s tenure was extended for five years; almost seven months ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. Since Tripathi was credited with turning GAIL into an aggressive gas marketing and transmission company, he earned his extension.

Many of his colleagues in CPSEs tend to describe him ‘Bhishma-pitamah’ of hydrocarbon sector because of his longevity. In case he gets another six-month extension beyond 31 July 2019 he would literally become one of the longest-serving CMD of a PSU.