Sadhna Dixit, Annie Moraes frontrunners for the post of member in Trai

KOLKATA: Former bureaucrat Sadhna Dixit and member-finance in the telecom department Annie Moraes have emerged frontrunners for the post of member in the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai).

The post is due to fall vacant in March when Vijayalakshmy K Gupta retires, two senior government officials told ET. Gupta, who is closely involved in the financial aspects of telecom regulations at Trai, was earlier member (finance) at DoT.

Nine candidates were recently interviewed by a four-member search committee headed by economist Bibek Debroy to select Gupta’s successor, one of the people cited said. Telecom Secretary Rakesh Garg and Trai Chairman RS Sharma are also on the search panel.

The appointment is critical as one of the first tasks of the next Trai member (finance) would be recommending pricing of various spectrum bands in the run-up to the next airwaves sale, likely in early 2016.

"Ms Dixit, who served as principal advisor (finance) in Trai about seven years ago when Nripendra Mishra was chairman, is reckoned to have a slight edge over Moraes," said the second official aware of the selection process.

Dixit and Moraes could not be reached for comments despite repeated attempts. An email query to Moraes went unanswered at press time. Among others shortilisted for the post are Deputy Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG) Ajanta Dayalan, Deputy CAG (defence & railways) Suman Saxena and former information & broadcasting secretary Bimal Julka.

The search for Gupta’s successor comes at a time when DoT is trying to hasten the next airwaves sale, reportedly at the behest of the finance ministry, which needs the spectrum proceeds to meet its fiscal deficit target of 3.9% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2015-16.