Sarin's fat pay buzz miffs BSNL brass

Mail Today Bureau,

New Delhi, June 22, 2010
Former chief executive officer (CEO) of Britainbased
Vodafone Group, Arun Sarin, whose name has been doing the rounds in the corridors of
power as a prospective head of the ailing Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) has reportedly
been offered a phenomenal salary of Rs 10 crore per annum, which is unprecedented in the
public sector.

This has caused a lot of heartburn among top officials at the state-run telecom behemoth as
the present BSNL chairman and managing director (CMD) Kuldeep Goyal takes home a
little over Rs 12 lakh a year. Goyal is retiring on July 31 this year.

The Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB), which is looking for the new BSNL CMD,
has shortlisted few names, including that of Sarin to head the ailing BSNL, which registered
losses of Rs 3,600 crore during the last fiscal, according to the report submitted by the
parliamentary panel.

Sarin as Vodafone's CEO took home a whopping Rs 152 crore ($ 33 million) as salary during
2006- 07. His name also figured among the top-paid CEOs in Forbes magazine. He had
successfully run Vodafone, the world's top telecom company.

PESB is open to offer marketdriven salary structure. The move will, however, need the
Cabinet's approval. Moreover, PESB's initiative to appoint talented professionals to run
telecom companies is also as per the recommendations of Sam Pitroda, who heads the
National Knowledge Commission constituted by the Prime Minister.

The committee headed by Sam Pitroda had also suggested a 15- point restructuring plan to
turn around the fortunes of the staterun firm. It had suggested that eminent persons from
the private sector should be appointed chairman, supported by best professionals selected
from the market at market rates.

"Separate the post of the managing director/ chief executive officer (from that of the
chairman).

Change the board composition to seven directors and allow the ministry to interact only
through the board, and not through day-to-day decision making," the panel had said.

The committee was set up by the Prime Minister in January in a bid to revive the struggling
public sector undertaking (PSU).

But Sarin's likely appointment as BSNL's CMD has not gone down well with the company's
top officials. The baffled BSNL officials refuse to agree to the need for hiring Sarin to head
the Indian PSU. " Our fight is not against any outsider.
The government is ready to pay Rs 10 crore to someone who does not have any experience
to run a public sector unit, which has over three lakh employees. The system is the same. It
is not easy to run a PSU like BSNL," a top BSNL official told Mail Today.

When asked V. A. N. Namboodiri, the convener of the Joint Action Committee ( JAC) of
BSNL Unions and Associations, said it would discuss this issue at its forum. " It is a serious
matter. I cannot make an individual comment on this issue before talking to JAC
members," he told Mail Today.