The two shortlisted candidates work with Telecommunications Consultants of India. While Saxena has been absorbed into Telecommunications Consultants of India, Goel is on a deputation to the state-run firm from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).

The director (development) post has been lying vacant for about seven months now. RK Gupta, who was earlier occupying the post, had resigned early this year to join Inmarsat.

In fact, the PESB had scheduled interviews in May, this year. However, the exercise had to be repeated, as the centre decided to increase the retirement age from 58 years to 60 years, which meant that a whole set of people became eligible to apply for the post.

The PESB has alsoshortlisted candidates for VSNL's director (finance) and director (networks) posts. However, the names of the shortlisted candidates for these positions could not be ascertained.

Even these posts have been vacant for a long time now. While the director (finance) slot has been unoccupied for more than a year now, the director (networks) is a newly created position.

Apart from VSNL's officiating chairman and managing director and director (operations) Amitabh Kumar, the company does not have any other wholetime director. Kumar apart, there are two DoT appointees on the VSNL board.

The PESB has already conducted interviews for the VSNL chairman and managing director post and has shortlisted candidates after BK Syngal's tenure ended on June 30. However, the government is yet to announce the appointment of the new chairman-cum-managing director.