“The process is on. Search committee will try to finish it by end of this month. It may get delayed for few days but will not cross September,” said a Department of Telecom official who did not wanted to be named.

Most of these applications, as per other sources in DoT, are from director and CGM level officials of both MTNL and BSNL.

Even officials from Department of Telecom are said to have applied for the post of CMD in these public sector unit.

Search Committee will now securitize these applications and conduct interview of the selected applicants.

Actuated by media report that charged DoT for not acting on recommendations made by Sam Pitroda panel, the department on last 15th July gave commitment to complete selection of CMD for both BSNL and MTNL in a month’s time.

However, the department turned cold again and issued notice for vacancy of both these posts 10 days after its commitment and declared this day as last for submitting application.

The search committee was formed under leadership of cabinet secretary KM Chandrashekhar and its member included Shantanu Consul, secretary, Department of Personnel, PJ THomas, secretary, Department of Telecom, Prof Ashok Jhunjunwala from IIT, Chennai, Prof Sameer Barua from IIM, Ahmedabad and Prof N. Balakrishnan from Indian Institute of Sciences (IISc), Bangalore.

At present Kuldeep Singh and Gopal Das are acting CMD of MTNL and BSNL respectively.