BSNL SNEA writes letter to Hon P.M. regarding imp. issue-inf.

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SNEA(I)/CHQ/Hon’ble PM/4/10-10 Dated 13th October, 2010.

To
Respected Sh Manmohan Singh Ji,
Hon’ble Prime Minister of India,
New Delhi.
Sub: Bureaucracy buries pivotal recommendation of Pitroda panel on induction of quality and versatile telecom professionals of impeccable integrity and outstanding track record as front line leaders of BSNL – betrays the key mandate to hunt best and quality talent.
Hon’ble Sir,
The very roots of the Indian bureaucracy ought to have got violently shaken by the very crux of the recommendations of the expert Pitroda panel – BSNL can once again be positioned as dominant player in telecom sector in terms of profit, revenues, technology, services, market share and social relevance. This will require vision, commitment and support from the government to implement bold initiatives and hard decisions. Recognizing the critical and potential significance of the recommendations of the panel in terms of accomplishing the key objective for which the expert panel of bringing BSNL out of the deep waters that it has sunk into was constituted at your initiative, your Hon’ble self entrusted the crucial job of spotting and inducting rare, accomplished and versatile talent of impeccable professional integrity available in huge abundance in extraordinarily competitive telecom market in the Country to lead BSNL to the trusted lieutenants in the government, the Cabinet Secretary, DOT Secretary and everyone in the bureaucracy, pretty confident that they would surely uphold your mandate to take badly needed bold and radical decisions to pave the way for induction of outstanding quality professionals of unassailable and uncompromising professional integrity and capable of circumventing political interference in business processes and decisions of the Company as frontline leaders to inject life and vibrancy in fast dying state owned telecom behemoth to bail it out of the deepest ever crisis that it is in. This was precisely and specifically your mandate to what can be easily called as of today so called search committee having successfully albeit nakedly defeated the very objective of your critical mandate on the selection process.
Firmly holding on to primitive and orthodox bureaucratic dogmas, and blatantly unrelenting in not acknowledging the radical and reformist tone and tenor of the expert panel, the Search Committee, under the Chairmanship of the top bureaucrat of the Country, ably aided by then Secy/DOT and now CVC, ignored lock, stock and barrel the very crux of your mandate, primarily based on the observations of the expert panel, on the fundamental and key issue of Management structure and composition which undoubtedly and unquestionably is going to be the fulcrum of change and thorough refurbishing that BSNL is urgently in need of – Enhance the quality of senior executives, the management team decision making process to respond to the competitive business environment and the changing market realities. Focus on selection of the best professionals from the market at market rates, for higher level management, with relevant experience and domain expertise (estimated around 30-50). Internal candidates should be given equal opportunity without any policy of preferential treatment.
The very head of the fundamental recommendation on the Management structure and composition was chopped off by the search committee when it finalized the selection criterion in July, 2010 – keeping even below mediocre professionals in the telecom market, let alone outstanding ones, thousands and thousands of miles away from the selection process. Hon’ble Sir, it is just incredible that search committee could afford to betray the mandate of the highest authority of the Country by finalizing the selection criterion in such an arbitrary manner that not a single person for the name sake from the telecom market packed with quality talent felt even remotely worth participating in the race. The crucial issue of leadership of BSNL was thus strangulated and sealed.
The obvious and inevitable catastrophic result of all this is there for everyone to see - the process of selection was thus exclusively restricted to a handful of inertia ridden internal candidates, born and brought up in monopolistic set up, devoid of vision, professionalism and leadership acumen, completely unexposed to the fast emerging and highly innovative and competitive trends and business processes in the new world of telecom, as much bureaucratic in approach as the bureaucracy itself is, and, above all, having led BSNL to the present irretrievably chaotic and sordid state for the last ten years.
This is how and from where the end product is expected to be selected. How and in which manner the search committee has exhibited vision, taken radical decisions and initiatives, in tune with the mandate and objective for which it was constituted, departing from the traditional process of selection through PESB, is incomprehensible and inexplicable. The process employed by the search committee is by all means more antiquated than the existing mechanism of selection through PESB. The search committee has miserably failed in applying to the assigned crucial task of spotting the huge and huge talent available in the market simply because it hung on to bureaucratic approach of selection and did not at all adopt radical approach which was the crux of the mandate for selection and which necessitated departure from selection through PESB.
Hon’ble Sir, even at this belated stage, we seek your benign immediate intervention to put on hold the whole process, and take fresh initiative of entrusting the key job of selection of top leadership of BSNL, which is going to be decisive and basic in turning it around, and in the absence of which other measures of policy change etc are not going to produce any results, whatsoever, to world renowned telecom consultants in which eminent telecom experts, not bureaucrats, are closely involved. BSNL handed over to an outstanding professional leadership will surely regain its pristine glory. Finally, Sir, BSNL is the pride of the Nation, embedded in which are the aspirations of millions and millions of our Countrymen to get quality services at affordable prices. This National institution of critical strategic importance has to be safeguarded from extinction, and right leadership at the top will undoubtedly herald the beginning of massive revamping process.
With kind regards,
Sincerely Yours

(G.L.Jogi)
Copy to:
1. Respected Sh. Sam Pitroda, Advisor to Hon’ble PM, for kind information & n/a please.
2. Sh K.M.Chandershekar, Cabinet Secretary, Govt. of India, for kind immediate n/a please.
3. Sh. T.K.A.Nair, Principal Secretary to Hon’ble PM, for kind immediate n/a please.
4. Sh. R.Chandrashekar, Secretary/DOT, for kind information and immediate n/a please.
5. Dr. Samir Kumar Barua, Professor, IIM Ahmedabad, for kind information please.
6. Dr. N.Balakrishnan, Professor IISc, Bangalore, for kind information please.
7. Sh. Santanu Consul, Secretary (Personnel), for kind immediate n/a please.
8. Sh.Deepak Parekh, Member of the Committee, for kind information & n/a please.
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