The Hindu : `Technical' resignations of ITS officers on BSNL board secured

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Nov 03, 2003

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`Technical' resignations of ITS officers on BSNL board secured

By Sandeep Dikshit

NEW DELHI NOV. 2. The Government has secured the `technical' resignations of all the Indian Telecom Service officers who have joined the Board of Directors of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited.

The new appointments come at a time when the ITS cadre are up in arms against the provisional appointment of a finance specialist, R.S.P. Sinha, as the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) Chairman and Managing Director and the embarrassment suffered by the Communications Minister, Arun Shourie, due to the interest shown by the Central Bureau of Investigation in mega tenders awarded by BSNL and MTNL to multinational companies.

Mr. Shourie had allowed the CBI a free hand in the matter. Its officials had visited the offices of both the state-run companies and requisitioned purchase-related files.

The ITS officers have taken the development in their stride but are unrelenting on the issue of appointing Mr. Sinha as the provisional CMD of MTNL as they fear his confirmation is a matter of time.

"The technical resignations were required because the BSNL board posts are not cadre posts although they are treated as such by convention," said a senior officer.

He said the ITS Association will make changes in its executive body tomorrow and decide on the future course of agitation against the "usurping" of the MTNL CMD's post by an officer of another cadre. They fear a repeat in the case of the much larger BSNL whose CMD, Prithipal Singh, is scheduled to retire at the end of the year.

The Executive Director of the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT), N. K. Mangla, has been named the Director (Commercial & Marketing) in place of the current incumbent, V. P. Sinha, who has been nominated Director (Planning & Services). Mr. Mangla had headed the materials management branch during Sukh Ram's tenure when Sanchar Bhavan had gone for massive purchases of telecom equipment. However, Mr. Sinha as the senior-most director will look after the tender business following the retirement of Nirmal Swaroop.

S.D. Saxena, a finance specialist, has been confirmed as BSNL's Director (Finance). He was looking after the post for sometime on an ad hoc basis. S.K. Jain has been named Director (HRD) in place of S.C. Kocchar who has been moved to MTNL as its Executive Director (Operations). The post of Director (Technical) has been kept vacant on technical grounds.

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