ONGC head should be chairman of subsidiary HPCL: Synergy panel

HPCL, which initially did not even recognise the new owner, continues to be headed by a chairman & MD, who does not report to parent firm ONGC or its board

- AMMAR ZAIDI

NEW DELHI: The oil and Natural Gas Corporation Chairman and Managing Director should also be the chair of the firm's subsidiary Hindustan Petroleum Corporation in line with the universal practice of a corporate group having only one chairman, a panel appointed to work out synergies between the two firms said in its report.

India's top oil and gas producer Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) had, in January 2018, bought the government's entire 51.11 per cent stake in HPCL for Rs 36,915 crore. The nation's third-biggest oil refining and fuel marketing company thereafter became a subsidiary of ONGC.

But Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL), which initially did not even recognise the new owner, continues to be headed by a chairman and managing director, who does not report to parent firm ONGC or its board. ONGC has got just one board position on HPCL following the acquisition.