After 11 months, Telecom got a new leadership

A minister informed that the Cabinet meeting on Thursday decided to hand over the leadership of Telecom to Pahari. She is the second female Managing Director of Telecom who has been acting since 17th December. Earlier, Kamini Rajbhandari was appointed as the first woman Managing Director of Telecom in 073.

Information and Communication Technology Minister Prithvisubba Gurung's proposal to appoint Pahadi as the managing director of Nepal Telecom, a minister informed that the decision was made by the cabinet meeting. In the then Nepal Telecommunication Institute on 049 Chait 23, Pahadi entered the service as an engineer from the seventh level. She was appointed Deputy Managing Director on 18 Jan 078. She has worked as a network expert engineer in 5G technology through 2G, 3G, 4G mobile services. ISC in Physics from Trichandra Campus and Bachelor of Engineering from Motilal Nehru Regional Engineering College, Allahabad, India, Pahadi has done ME from Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand.

In October 2008, Nepal Telecom became leaderless after a case was filed against the then Managing Director of Telecom in the case of corruption in the purchase of National Payment Gateway. Pahari, who competed for the post of managing director twice in a row, was given the responsibility of managing director on behalf of the company by the ministerial decision of October 16. In 081 Baisakh, the special court found Paudel guilty and sentenced him to 9 years in prison and imposed a fine of 230,275,800 rupees. After the opening of Paudel prison, the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology revised the guidelines for the appointment of the Managing Director of Telecom and opened the call for applications on May 22.

17 people applied for the position of Managing Director of Telecom, except for one person who did not meet the qualifications, 16 people's applications were approved. The process was delayed because the then Minister of Communications, Prime Minister and Chief Secretary wanted to hand over the leadership of Nepal Telecom to people close to them. When the Maoist and CPN-UML coalition government was in crisis, the Ministry of Communications tried hard to finalize the appointment of the Telecom Director, but it could not be completed. The selection committee formed under the coordination of then Communications Secretary Ramakrishna Subedi called 16 candidates for action plan presentation and interview on June 20, 21 and 22.

The committee formed according to the 'Managing Director Appointment and Service Facilitation Guidelines of Nepal Telecommunication Company Limited, 080' had prepared a 'shortlist' with the names of three people. The selection committee recommended the names of Anil Kumar Jha, Managing Director of Janak Shiksha Material Center, Bimal Acharya along with Pahadi, Acting Managing Director of Telecom.

The new government was confused whether to choose the managing director from the process that was carried out during the then Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal's government or to cancel it and start a new process. Prithvisubba Gurung, who came as the Minister of Communications, decided to make the appointment according to the old recommendation after legal and practical discussions. Ministry sources say that he asked Attorney General Ramesh Badal for his opinion on this matter and Badal suggested to proceed with the old process. After three months of opening applications for the position of managing director of

Telecom, the appointment process has finally been completed. The then Minister of Communications, Rekha Sharma, had revised the guidelines for the appointment of Nepal Telecom's managing director and service facilities before asking for applications for the post of managing director so that the qualifications of Acharya, Jha and Pahadi were met. The age limit to become the managing director of Nepal Telecom was increased from 56 to 58 years. She was 57 years old. Nepal Telecommunications Company Limited Staff Regulations, 078 mentions that compulsory retirement from the service of the company will be given after completing 58 years.

According to the guidelines on the appointment of the Managing Director of Nepal Telecom, the term of service of the Managing Director is four years. Salary is Rs 250,000 per month, house rent is Rs 60,000 per month, if you have a house in Kathmandu valley, house maintenance expenses equal to 1 month's monthly salary in 2 years, festival expenses equal to one month's salary per year, travel expenses, hospitality expenses are available.

The employees who have been demanding that a person within the company should be the managing director have commented that Pahari did not do much productive work when he took over the leadership of Telecom for almost a year as a substitute. The government has provided free frequencies for testing 5G, but it is not possible to test it, investigation has started on the suspicion of purchasing a new billing system of telecom, not being able to complete the 4G project, not achieving significant progress in FTTH expansion, not being able to provide quality service due to the lack of number of BTS towers despite the addition of customers. Criticism of Telecom leadership has been happening. It is said that this issue will be a major challenge for Pahari.