It has become a habit and almost a convention in the Central PSUs – once the Chairman or Managing Director or Chairman & Mg. Director (CMD) retires, the vacancy will be kept for months or years together. The CMD BSNL Kuldeep Goyal retired about one year back, and the vacancy is not yet filled. Gopal Das, Director (HR ) who was asked to look after has also retired on 31st March 2010. Still no regular posting. The Director (Finance), BSNL S.K.Saxena retired two years back and so far, the vacancy has not been filled. At present there are only three Directors in BSNL, where there should be six including the CMD. A sorry state indeed.

It is not the case of BSNL alone. It is the case with many Central PSUs. There are no heads for MTNL,ONGC, NHAI and SBI at present after the retirement of the last incumbents. There is a Public Enterprises Selection Board. There are other mechanisms available for the Government to take decision. But it seems that the government don’t want to appoint to these crucial posts in the PSUs. Government is not interested in the functioning of the PSUs. This may be a new line of thinking of the government that this method of non-filling up the posts the PSUs can be made ineffective.

It can also be that there is power tussle in the government about who is to be appointed. The postings in PSUs were mainly reserved for favourites instead of posting the best suited person. It has been clearly exposed as in the case of the appointment of the CVC.

Wake up from the ‘sleep’ and fill up the vacancies of heads of PSUs with suitable persons.