Former sports secretary Ravi Mittal will take over as the chairman of the insolvency regulator, Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI), for a period of five years or until he is 65, whichever is earlier.

A 1986-batch IAS officer of Bihar cadre, Mittal had also worked as the secretary in the department of information and broadcasting, and as the special secretary in the department of financial services.

Mittal will succeed MS Sahoo, the first chairman of the IBBI who retired on September 30, 2021, after completing a five-year term. Navrang Saini, a whole-time member of the IBBI, was given additional charge as the chairman until March 5.

Mittal will head the IBBI at a time when the government has decided to bring in further reforms to cut delay in the insolvency resolution process and prevent erosion of stressed asset value. This will also boost recovery of financial creditors like banks. The FY23 Budget announced necessary amendments in the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code “to enhance the efficacy of the resolution process and facilitate cross-border insolvency resolution”.

The move came months after the parliamentary standing committee on finance cautioned that the IBC may have strayed from its original objectives, thanks to inordinate delay in resolution and large haircuts for lenders. It had also suggested that the most crucial reasons for the delay in resolution and asset value erosion are the bottlenecks in the NCLT system.

As many as 13,170 insolvency cases involving claims of Rs 9.2 lakh crore are awaiting resolution before the NCLT. About 71% of the cases have been pending beyond 180 days, the panel had said in its report in August.