Kathmandu, August 29 The Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MoCIT) has recommended three candidates as potential chairperson of Nepal Telecommunication Authority (NTA) to the Cabinet. The recommended candidates for the top NTA post include former NTA chairperson Digambar Jha, former secretary at Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MoCIT) Sushil Ghimire and NTA Senior Director Purushottam Khanal. “The ministry shortlisted the final three candidates and tabled the list at the Cabinet yesterday,” said Anup Nepal, undersecretary at MoCIT. As per Nepal, the Cabinet is expected to finalise the name of the NTA chairperson after the meeting of Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) concludes. Altogether 15 candidates had submitted their application for the post of NTA chairperson within the given deadline of August 24. Apart from the three shortlisted candidates, other applicants included NTA Board Member Chandra Mani Chaulagain; NTA Senior Director Ananda Raj Khanal; former managing director of Nepal Telecom (NT) Buddhi Prasad Acharya, and former deputy managing director of NT Dev Narayan Yadav. Former deputy managing directors of NT Rabindra Jha, Shiva Bhusan Lal, Khadga Basnet and Madhu Sudan Karmacharya; former general manager at Janak Shikshya Samagri Ltd Anil Jha; Chief Executive Officer at Smart Mobile in Burundi Bhupendra Bhandari; ICT Specialist at United Nations Children’s Fund Ujjwal Pradhananga and Sales Director at Ncell Rohit Rauniar were the other candidates eyeing the top post at NTA. Following the decision to fill the vacant leadership post at the country’s telecommunications regulatory body through open competition, the government had called for application from interested candidates on August 18.