The government may turn to private sector executives if no suitable candidate is found for the post of BSNL’s chairman and managing director (CMD), The Economic Times reported.
The state-owned telecom company usually appoints government executives, such as from the Department of Telecommunications. However, the post of CMD has been awaiting the appointment of a full-time executive for the last two years.
Currently, Robert Jerard Ravi, a Deputy Director General in the Department of Telecommunications, holds additional charge as BSNL’s CMD after the government decided not to extend the tenure of his predecessor, P K Purwar.
The advertisement released by the government in 2018 for the post of BSNL’s CMD had kept the door open for private sector executives to apply.
As the appointment of the CMD has already been delayed by months, the government may actively look for an external candidate if internal candidates are not found suitable.
The public sector company interviewed about 10 candidates last year but could not finalise any name, as many of them had chargesheets filed against them, the report said.
Even Purwar had a chargesheet filed against him in a case related to cybersecurity tools purchase irregularities. Hence, his tenure was not renewed despite his insistence.
The absence of a full-time CMD has also weighed on the company’s timelines to roll out 4G services, while private players were already gearing up for 5G.
While Ravi was initially appointed as interim CMD for six months, his tenure has been repeatedly extended in the absence of a suitable candidate.
Under his tenure, BSNL started providing 4G services to its users and turned profitable for a brief period. In the third quarter of FY26, the company posted a loss of Rs 1,306 crore.
The company has also lost a large share of subscribers to private players like Reliance Jio and Airtel.
Jio had the highest number of subscribers at over 503 million as of January, followed by Airtel (348 million), Vodafone (128 million), and BSNL (25 million).
