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.