A total of 14 people have submitted applications to become the Managing Director of Nepal Oil Corporation (NOC).

The Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies published a notice on December 23 to select the Managing Director of NOC through an open competition.

According to the ministry, Kamalendra Lal Karna of Mahottari, Uttarkumar Regmi of Kathmandu, Er Sahadev Chand, Dilip Shekhar Shrestha, Er Dr Dolprasad Chapagai of Chitwan, Pankaj Kumar Das of Morang, Madhav Regmi, Er Amod Prasad Chaudhary have applied for the post.

Similarly, Ramdev Yadav of Dhanusha, Sanjiv Kumar Dev of Saptari, Chandika Prasad Bhatta of Gorkha, Basanta Kumar Pandey of Dang, Dolindra Prasad Sharma of Baglung and Shatrudhan Prasad Pudasaini of Lalitpur are competing to become the of Managing Director of NOC.

The interested Nepali citizens with the qualification in accordance with the guidelines for the appointment and nomination of officials in the public bodies affiliated to the ministry, 2078 BS, were allowed to apply within 21 days from the date of publication of the notice.

The managing director of the NOC, Umesh Prasad Thani, resigned from the post on December 12. Thani was appointed as the managing director of the NOC for a three-year term on March 10, 2022. He worked for 21 months. After he resigned 15 months before the end of his term, the ministry started the process of new appointment.

During Thani's tenure, the NOC reduced its debt by Rs 50 billion. The Corporation is currently in profit. After Thani left the post, the Corporation currently has CA Nagendra Sah as the acting Managing Director.

The ministry will recommend the names of three applicants out of 14 to the Cabinet. Then the Cabinet will appoint one out of the three short-listed candidates as the managing director of the NOC.