The Telecom Authority of India has appointed Commerce Secretary Rahul Khullar as new chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) for a three year term. 

Khullar, 59, who will replace JS Sarma, is a 1975 officer of the Indian Administrative Service. He has earlier served as secretary to Dr Manmohan Singh when he was finance minister and carried out India’s first round of economic reforms in the early ‘90s.

The new chairman will take over at a time when telecom sector is going through a tough time. His first responsibility will be to sort out the tussle between the telecom firms and the government over the TRAI recommendations on 2G spectrum auction.

Those who were in the race were R P Singh, former secretary of the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Defence Production Secretary Shekhar Agarwal, Fertiliser Secretary Ajay Bhattacharya, Former DoT Member (Technology) Chandra Prakash, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation Commissioner Subodh Kumar, former secretary (Defence Finance) Indu Liberhan and Vijayalakshmi K Gupta.