The government has appointed a new panel comprising Sam Pitroda, chairman, National Knowledge Commission, Nandan Nilekani, chairman, Unique Identification Authority of India, cabinet secretary K.M. Chandrasekhar, and principal secretary to the Prime Minister, T.K.A Nair, for selecting a chairman and managing director for Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited(BSNL), according to news reports.
Prior to this, another panel had been appointed, which was headed by the cabinet secretary. This panel had short listed 11 candidates for the post including R. K. Upadhyay, managing director, Telecommunications Consultants of India Limited; K. L. Dhingra, managing director, Indian Telephone Industries Limited; and Anil Kaushal, chief general manager, Northern Telecom Maintenance Region, BSNL. The search committee had failed to net any candidate from the private sector.
The decision to re-start the entire process comes after a section of the BSNL workers union filed a public interest litigation in the Delhi High Court against the process. The petition challenged the change in the eligibility criteria. ?The arbitrary change was done contrary to the initiative that the Prime Minister took in January by appointing the Pitroda Committee, which in February, had recommended appointing professionals for the top posts at the market salary levels,? stated the petition.
The union, Sanchar Nigam Executive Association, said that it had brought this arbitrary change to the notice of the Government on October 1, 2010, clearly pointing out the involvement of the then Minister of Telecommunications and IT, A. Raja, with the ulterior motive to select R.K. Upadhyay for the post of BSNL?s CMD and Kuldip Singh (acting CMD of MTNL since December 2009) for the post of CMD, MTNL.
