Appointment of DTS secretary cancelled

BANGALORE: Following the opposition by the officers of the Indian Telecom

Services (ITS) on the appointment of Vinod Vaish to head the newly-formed

Department of Telecom Services (DTS), the Union government has cancelled his

appointment and handed over the charge to P.S. Saran.

According to sources, the cancellation of Mr Vaish's appointment, decided at

the Prime Minister's level, was a result of ITS, which managed to gather support

of at least three Union ministers from Bihar, including communications minister

Ram Vilas Paswan. BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha is also believed to have argued that a

technocrat rather than a generalist should man the new department.

Cancelling the order which appointed Mr Vaish, an IAS officer, as secretary

in the DTS, the appointments committee of the cabinet issued a fresh order

saying that member (services) of the Telecom Commission P. S. Saran will hold

the "additional charge'' of the DTS post. The department was created to

separate the service-provider functions of the department of telecom (DoT) from

its policy-making functions. The move was considered essential for providing a

level playing field to private operators.