April 25 has raised the curiosity bars. As many ten short-listed candidates are scheduled to appear before a five member Search-cum-selection-committee today for OIL top job.The Search-cum-selection-committee includes Cabinet Secretary, Petroleum Secretary, DOPT Secretary and two experts. Of the 10 shortlisted candidates; four are said to be civil servants. They are NITI Aayog Adviser Anil Kumar Jain (IAS:1986:MP); JS Commerce Ravi Capoor (IAS:1986:AM); JS DOPT Jishnu Barua IAS:1988:AM). Capoor and Jain have previously served in the P&NG Ministry. From the PSUs, OIL Director (Operations) P K Sharma; P K Rao, Director (Operations) ONGC Videsh Ltd; Ashutosh Karnatak, Director (Project) GAIL India Ltd; Biswajit Roy Director (HR) OIL (who has service till 07 May 2020) have been picked up. From the private sector, a top executive, Sunil K Bharti, previously with Cairn India, has also been shortlisted. The government took up the SCSC route after it failed to get a suitable candidate in three previous attempts by the PESB in November 2014, February 2015 & Sept 2015. Surprisingly, on all three occasions, Ms. RS Borah, Director-Finance OIL, could not make it to the final round. Indianmandarins was the first to carry on 09 Feb 2016 that the ACC had approved the constitution of a search-cum-selection-committee (SCSC), headed by union cabinet secretary, to fill the post of CMD, OIL. The post has been lying vacant since July 01, 2015. U P Singh (JS, Petroleum) was given the additional charge of CMD, OIL after S K Srivastava retired on June 30, 2015. If some well-placed sources are to be believed Biswajit Roy (Director HR, OIL),  P K rao (Director, Operations, OVL) and Ravi Capoor (IAS) are said to have brightest prospects for the top job. But yet. One can wait and watch only.