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Policy & Regulation
Decision making may be the first casualty in top empty telecom ministry
Manoj Gairola |  |  01 Aug 2016

It is a crisis that could have been easily avoided. Next month Telecom Commission (TC) would be almost empty. There would not be any member in the highest decision making body in the telecom sector except its chairman JS Deepak, who is also the secretary of the department of telecommunications (DoT).

This crisis is not limited to TC. The ministry has five PSUs under it. These are - Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL), ITI Ltd, Telecommunications Consultants India Ltd (TCIL) and Bharat Broadband Network Ltd (BBNL). All of them are working without either permanent Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) or Director (finance), the two most important positions in any PSU.

Let us begin with the TC. Until last month, two positions were lying vacant in TC - that of member (Production) and member (Technology). On 30th July, member (Finance) Annie Moraes also retired. So NK Yadav, member (Services) remains to be the only member in the Telecom Commission besides its Deepak.

Yadav is also slated to retire in August. If one goes by the pace at which the process of filling these positions is going on, one can safely assume that Deepak will be the only member left in the TC in September.

What adds to the problem is that the positions of advisor (operations) and advisor (technology) are lying vacant in the ministry. PK Mittal, a deputy director general (DDG) responsible for auction of spectrum, will also retire in August.

There are no full-time CMDs in BBNL and TCIL, two important PSUs under the ministry. BBNL is responsible for implementing national optical fibre network (NOFN). USO Fund administrator Sanjay Singh has been given additional charge of BBNL CMD. In TCIL, its member (finance) AK Gupta has been given additional charge of CMD. There is no director (planning) in BBNL.

ITI Ltd does not have any full time CMD for a long time. Its director (marking) P K Gupta has been given additional charge as its CMD.

Similarly, BSNL does not have a full time director (finance) for last couple of years. However, its saving grace is that the director (finance) Sujata Ray who is looking after as director (finance) is an Indian P&T Accounts and Finance Service officer.

With so many top positions lying vacant in the telecom ministry and its PSUs, decision making may be a casualty. It is clear that there is some basic administrative problem. It has increased in last two years. It needs to be tackled at the level of the minister Manoj Sinha, otherwise performance of the ministry would suffer.

    
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01 Aug 2016(IST)  
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