Bangalore: The search for a successor to Ratan Tata gathered momentum after India's biggest conglomerate said a five-member panel would select its next chairman. Tata, 72, head of the $70-billion salt-to-software group, who has built the world's cheapest car and taken the group global, will step down in December 2012, creating a vacancy for what is widely regarded as the top job in corporate India. The search committee has five members including an external member. It was, however, not clear whether who the members were and queries about Ratan Tata himself being part of the search committee yielded no response from the group's spokesperson. "The Board of Tata Sons has formed a selection committee comprising five members, including an external member for eventually deciding on a suitable successor to Ratan N Tata," Tata Sons, the Group's holding company, said in a statement. Tata, 72, would be hanging his boots in December 2012 when he would turn 75 -the retirement age fixed by the group. The setting up of a search committee for the chairman's post - the first such in the group - is in line with Ratan Tata's vision of transforming the group from a patriarchal concern to an institutional enterprise. Incidentally, it is Tata who was the driving force behind the group's retirement policies. Earlier this year, Ratan Tata said "I do not want to go out on a wheelchair and I do have the responsibility to have a successor" Although the group is over 100 years old, it was only in 2006 that it earned global recognition when Ratan Tata spearheaded the buyout of Anglo-Dutch steel maker Corus.