Geologists win in ONGC mid-level promotions
Outgoing ONGC director exploration Sushma Rawat, a geologist, faces favouritism allegations after the company promoted a staggering 38 chief geologists.
On March 29 (2025), ONGC promoted 280 officers from E4 to E5 level, back-dated from January 1 (2025). ONGC hires officers at E1 level and promotes them up to E9 or executive director level, which is just below the board of directors.
In engineering disciplines, E4 officers are designated chief engineers. In geology, they are defined as chief geologists, and in geophysics, they are chief geophysicists.
In other disciplines, E4 officers are chief managers. E5 officers are DGMs.
Criticism of the 2025 promotions focuses on the exploration division, which includes geology, geophysics, reservoir engineering, chemistry, mathematics, and computer programming. Of the 38 chief geologists promoted, 27 were recruited in 2008 at E1 level.
Some say director exploration Rawat, set to retire on June 30 (2025), is behind the high geology department promotions compared to other disciplines like reservoir engineering, where just eleven benefited. "All (the promoted chief geologists) worked with her in Mumbai or Jorhat (Assam) where she was basin manager," says a source.
"Geology has received a disproportionate share of promotions at the cost of other exploration disciplines." On April 1 (2025), a chief geophysicist commented on the company's website: "Favouritism spoils the talented, discourages the deserving, and weakens the organisation; where merit is ignored, failure soon follows; in the exploration discipline, everyone was aware beforehand about the names appearing in the promotion list from the 2008 batch."
Another E4 level officer, chief geologist Gautam Kumar Rajan, was similarly critical in a comment posted the same day (April 1, 2025). "As expected, there were no surprises," he stressed.
"Most names from the 2008 batch had been widely discussed within ONGC offices; my concern is not about the list but the selection criteria." Rajan later wrote to HR director Manish Patil, ONGC chairman AK Singh and others on April 4 (2025) requesting that they suspend the E4 to E5 promotions "for further review" and conduct an "impartial reassessment of the promotion process to ensure fairness and adherence to organisational policies."
Another source complains that the DGH inducted 20 geoscientists in 2007, and ONGC took these in 2008 without interviews or exams. "Many of these are in the latest promotions list," we hear.
Contacted by this report, Rawat did not respond to phone calls or texts seeking comment.