Siddharth Zarabi: New telecom watchdog

BACKSTAGE

From various field positions to a stint in the World Bank, formulating India's trade policy, handling WTO matters, telecom policy to now regulating the communications and cable TV space, the 1967-batch UP-cadre IAS officer Nripendra Misra has come a long way. He's been principal secretary in Uttar Pradesh to chief ministers as diverse as Kalyan Singh and Mulayam Singh.

Around a decade ago, when Misra was additional secretary in the commerce ministry, when the first mobile phones just started coming into the country, few would have thought he would end up regulating the sector. Four years later, in 2000, he was allocated work relating to the WTO Trade Policy, in addition to his existing charge. Generally seen dressed in mandarin-collar, crisp white shirts, the dapper bureaucrat was known to meet journalists only after receiving a faxed request (hope that changes now!). It doesn't mean that he was unavailable. It is just that he was particular about the way things are done and liked to do things the right way. In fact, a former aide recalls Misra taking a young journalist on the telecom beat under his wing "" today, the gentleman is a top writer on the sector.

It's not just journalists. Misra has a knack for listening and talking to everyone "" corporates and politicians alike. That perhaps explains his successful stint as telecom secretary, from where he retired in 2005. Two key developments while he was at Sanchar Bhawan (from December 2003 to March 2005) were the DoT piloting the enhancement of the FDI limit in telecom services to 74 per cent, and also cracking down hard on the illegal international call scandal, which led to Reliance Infocomm being fined hundreds of crore rupees. He also cracked down on DoT officials who were joining private telecom operators without the mandatory cooling-off period.

Steadfast in his approach, Misra is unflappable. He is brusque too "" rumour has it that he threw out a top executive of a telecom firm from his office. Perhaps why most were a little dismayed that Misra was not given a post-retirement sinecure. It was only later that it became clear that he had been appointed the chairman of the Chennai-based C-DoT Alcatel Research Centre, a 51:49 joint venture between France's Alcatel and the Centre for Development of Telematics. The joint venture is a pet project of Union Communications and Information Technology Minister Dayanidhi Maran. In the event, from there to the top job at the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India was perhaps a foregone conclusion.