The Securities and Exchange Board of India has promoted 18 of its staff to the post of chief general manager. The promotions include 14 general managers (GMs) from the operations division, three GMs from the legal department and one from the information technology department, sources told BusinessLine .

Existing CGMs may be about 40, and after the promotion, the number will go up to 60, added the sources.

It is SEBI’s first ‘major’ promotion drive after its staff had walked out of office in October last year to protest against the regulator’s internal promotion policy and human resourced practice. But insiders say that SEBI has been able to promote competent staff only after the protests died down.

Many officials are terming this as a good move as promotions also mean that a lot of senior SEBI officials may be eligible to move to senior positions in the RBI and other government institutions such as Enforcement Directorate or even Serious Fraud Investigation Office. A CGM is equivalent to the rank of a director or a joint secretary in the Government of India.

The staff protests were held after SEBI changed its minimum service requirement for promotion to five years from three. The last time such a protest took place was in 1997 over the appointment of Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officers as division chiefs. Last year, the protest followed SEBI’s move to change its promotion policy that had been in place for over 15 years.

Displeasure

Also, there has been a lot of heartburn among SEBI officials as they were not considered eligible for the post of executive director — legal, even though they had a background in the field but were working in other departments. SEBI has been increasing its staff strength to handle more work.

Interestingly, it got 77,000 applications for a few entry-level jobs but recruitment for legal jobs could not take place as only a handful of applicants could pass the exam. According to the sources, only 1,800 qualified; of the 77,000, only around 50 per cent turned up for the exam.

SEBI had asked even arithmetic questions to those who came for legal jobs and as assistant managers. Most could not pass these exams, the sources said. Interviews are now being held to select 130 people out of those who passed the exam.

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