The government has identified twelve candidates for taking up positions of executive directors in state run banks.

Amongst the list of candidates shortlisted by the Department of Financial Services, there are two general managers each from Punjab National Bank (PNB), Bank of Baroda (BoB) and Union Bank of India. The list of candidates also includes one general manager each from Canara Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Allahabad Bank, Bank of Maharashtra, UCO Bank and Andhra Bank.

These final twelve have been shortlisted from a group of 34 candidates after interview session by a panel headed by R Gopalan, secretary, financial services.

It has been reported that RK Dubey, a general manager at PNB, is likely join Central Bank of India as ED, while his colleague at the Delhi-headquartered bank, Archana Bhargava, is likely to shift to Canara Bank.

Further, two general managers at Bank of Baroda, N R Badrinarayanan and SS Mundra, are expected to join UCO Bank and Union Bank of India, respectively.

AK Bansal, general manager in Union Bank of India is expected to join Indian Overseas Bank while VK Iyer, his colleague, is expected to join Central Bank of India. While N Sheshadri of Canara Bank may head for Bank of India, Rajesh Rishi of Oriental Bank of Commerce may join Indian Bank.

Ashwani Kumar of Allahabad Bank is likely to head Corporation Bank, while Rakesh Sethi of Andhra Bank may join PNB. Ravi Chatterjee of UCO Bank is likely to join Syndicate Bank as ED. V Kannan of Bank of Maharashtra is expected to join as one of the executive directors at Oriental Bank of Commerce.

With the huge vacuum to be created with retirement of 11 chairmen of State run banks in 2010, estimates have been made that about 20 vacancies for the post of ED will be created this year. Three out of these twenty have been already been selected as EDs.