NT unions demand appointment of new chief

KATHMANDU, JAN 07 -Workers’ unions at Nepal Telecom (NT) have demanded that the government appoint a new managing director (MD) at the state-run telecom giant at the earliest. The post has remained vacant for the last three months.


The unions— Nepal Telecom Workers’ Union, Nepal Telecom Employees’ Council, Nepal Telecom Employees’ Union, Telecom Employees’ Association of Nepal (TEAN) and National Employees Organisation of Nepal (NEON)—have also warned of an agitation if the government does not fulfil their demand. “We will wait for a few more days, and even if the government continues to ignore our demand, we will declare protest,” said NEON President Sunil Kumar Mishra.

The unions, except TEAN, submitted afresh memorandum to the Ministry of Information and Communications (MoIC) on Sunday warning of a protest. Earlier, TEAN had also separately submitted a letter to the Communications Ministry with the same demand. Last week too, the unions had submitted a memorandum to the ministry demanding the appointment of a new MD at NT.

The union representatives said the government’s apathy towards NT has created doubts whether it is serious about the country’s largest tax payer. After the two-year term of Amar Nath Singh expired on Oct 12, the post of MD at NT has remained vacant. Singh retired from the service on the basis of age.

Currently, Budhi Acharya is functioning as acting MD as per NT rules. NT officials said an acting chief cannot take big and policy decisions, which ultimately affects performance. “We too know that an absence of a responsible person to make decisions hurts NT,” said Umakant Parajuli, spokesperson for the Communications Ministry. “However, I do not have any knowledge about preparations to send a recommendation to the Cabinet for the same.”

In the past, the Cabinet used to appoint a chief at NT based on the recommendation of the ministry. However, with the Public Enterprise Board (PEB) now in place, it is the PEB that will have to do the groundwork for the appointment of chiefs at public enterprises, including the NT.

The PEB has been mandated to conduct an open completion for the appointment of chiefs of PEs. However, the NT unions say new a new chief at NT has to be appointed from within the company as PEBs’ hiring procedure takes a long time.