Highly placed VSNL sources revealed that two current directors of VSNL, Vinoo Goyal and Rajneesh Gupta have applied for the post.

The current acting-CMD Amitabh Kumar, has in the meantime made a representation on certain terms of the qualifications, which if not clarified could render him ineligible for the post.

Kumar has been a front-runner for the high-profile post considering that he has been officiating since last June and has experience as director (operations) of the company prior to that.

The Government, however, has after an earlier round of selection decided to this time around throw open the post to professionals from the private sector, and this, according to sources, explains the rather high number of applicants.

The last date for applying was April20 (21 days after from the advertisement on March 30). "Even though on the one hand it is rather encouraging to note the interest in the post, on the other it means that much longer for the company to be headless considering the time that the Government would take to scrutinise such a huge amount of applications. As it is, the company has been headless for almost a year and now with the Government too in a limbo, it does not appear that VSNL would have a CEO in the near future," said a source.

In fact, sources said that certain FIIs have informally conveyed their displeasure to company officials on the failure of the Government to appoint a whole time CEO. "They attach a lot of value to a CEO and are sore that the Government which owns 53 per cent is not taking steps to ensure that the balance 47 per cent shareholders do not suffer owing to the absence of a CEO," said the source.

A new twist to the tale has been added with the Government placing November 2, 1998 as the cut-off date (as against the March30 advertisement) for meeting the eligibility criteria. The trouble in case of Kumar is that the company got elevated to a schedule A company only in February and hence he does not meet the minimum one year requirement in schedule B grade for a VSNL employee to be eligible. The issue was even discussed by officers of the company with communications minister Jagmohan when he visited VSNL recently, who said that he would look into the matter.

The post of VSNL chief has become very high profile following the phenomenal growth that the company has registered over the past few years and the international acclaim received as a result.

With analysts predicting a profit after tax of over Rs 1,400 crore for 1998-99, VSNL is also one of the largest listed corporates in the country. With international call tariffs being further reduced, the company is looking at a 30 per cent growth in traffic translating into a 15-20 per cent growth in revenues.