A N Rai, director (enterprise) at Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited has been given the additional charge of chairman and managing director (CMD) of the state-owned telecom company.

The decision comes after R K Upadhyay retired from the position on June 30, 2014 after completing a three year term. Upadhyay's tenure, as per his appointment letter, was to end on April 30, 2014. However, he was given an extension till end of June 2014, by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) after approval from the former Minister of Telecommunications and IT, Kapil Sibal.

Earlier, the Public Enterprise Selection Board (PESB) had recommended Anupam Shrivastava, director (consumer mobile services), for the post of BSNL’s CMD but the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) is yet to give his final approval on the matter.

Meanwhile, Rai has been serving as BSNL’s director (enterprise) since September, 2011. He is an officer of Indian Telecommunications Service 1977 batch. He has been actively involved in the installation, commissioning and maintenance of switching equipment at various places in the country. Further, he has handled rural networking and Cellular Mobile Telephone Services (CMTS) segments. He has also served as chief general manager of BSNL’s Orissa Circle.