The Ministry of Communications is likely to reappoint Robert Jerard Ravi to continue as the Chairman and Managing Director of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL).

Ravi was appointed BSNL CMD in July 2024, after not extending the tenure of PK Purwar who served the State-owned telecom firm, since July 2019.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in October had published an advertisement on hiring a new CMD of BSNL with last of application being November 15, but there was no application as such till the last date, sources told businessline.

“There were no applicant for the post being advertised for BSNL CMD and Robert J Ravi is being considered to continue as the CMD of the company. The announcement is likely to come in a day or two,” a government source privy of the developments told businessline.

It was Ravi’s second stint at BSNL when he was appointed as the CMD in July. Earlier, he had served as Additional General Manager at the firm.

An Indian Telecom Service officer, Ravi, has 34 years of experience in the telecom sector. Currently, he is serving as Deputy Director General at DoT and before that he was serving as the Advisor (Consumer Affairs and Qualoty of Services) at the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

He was involved in laying down the standards of quality of services to be provided by the service providers. His division was also responsible for laying for the regulated growth of Value-added service.

Ravi is a Gold Medalist in Engineering from the Pondicherry University, and MBA in International Business.

He joined the debt laden company at a time when it was going through transition into 4G and now working on launching 5G in future. Also, MTNL that was supposed to get merged into BSNL is now being looked onto.

According to sources in the government, the option of handing over debt-laden MTNL’s operations to BSNL through an agreement is being looked into. Given MTNL’s high debt, a merger with BSNL was not a favourable option, they added.

Giving control of MTNL’s operation to BSNL without formally merging the businesses would mean removing some of the logistical hurdles related to a merger, such as having to de-list MTNL and buy back a certain number of shares, as per experts.