NEW DELHI, JULY 22: Efforts are on to scuttle the now much delayed appointment of a chairman and managing director for public sector Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL) for the second time after the Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) has concluded the selection process. VSNL has been headless for the last 13 months now after its previous CMD retired on June 30 last year.The Cabinet Secretariat had returned the appointment file to the concerned ministry - the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) - seeking clarifications on why no internal candidate of VSNL had been called for the interviews held on June 3.The query, sources say, was made on the grounds of a representation made by the All India VSNL SC, ST and OBC Employees Federation which had demanded that the current acting CMD Amitabh Kumar be given a fair chance for competing in the race for the VSNL top slot. Amitabh Kumar, incidentally is currently the junior-most directors of the VSNL who has held the acting CMD post for over a yearnow.What is most surprising is that the above mentioned employees' union, based in Pune, is not recognised even by the VSNL itself! The DoT and PESB have now replied to the Cabinet Secretariat stating that no VSNL candidates had been interviewed as none of them fulfilled the eligibility criteria as specified by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet before the June 3 interviews.After the VSNL top job fell vacant last June, the job was advertised and interviews were held in August last year. Narendra Sharma, currently secretary with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) was on the top of the list followed by S K Gupta, chief general manager of the Gujarat circle in the shortlist.However, in November, the ACC cancelled the panel for a ``wider selection'' and laid down certain eligibility criteria for the next round of interviews. The new criteria specified that internal candidates of VSNL needed to have at least one year in a schedule B grade as on November 3. The criteria also statedthat candidates who had appeared in the first round of interviews would not be interviewed again.As a result of these criteria, the acting CMD Amitabh Kumar was not called for the interviews on June 3, as he did not fulfill both these conditions having got his Schedule B promotion only on May 7. And this time of the 104 candidates who applied 17 were called for the interviews and the shortlist had S K Gupta at number one and Narendra Sharma as the runner up for the top job. The shortlist was forwarded to the ACC in June itself but was returned to the DoT with a query.The DoT and PESB have cited these reasons to the ACC yet again. In fact the other three present directors of the VSNL - Rajneesh Gupta, Veenu Goyal and R S P Sinha had not even joined the VSNL in November.With the further delay in the appointment of the CMD, the DoT has now moved a file seeking to replace Amitabh Kumar from the position of the acting CMD as he is junior to the other three VSNL directors.
