Giridhar Gomango

Who were the best union telecom ministers, we asked a retired
technocrat from DoT who had worked with 13 ministers during his tenure. He took
two names - Shri Giridhar Gomango and Shri Sukhram. Sukhram, of course, draws
extreme responses. But, Gomango's name was a surprise. When asked a few other
technocrats who were at the helm of affairs at that time, most of them agreed on
Gomango. 'He was overshadowed by Sam Pitroda,' was the common reaction.

While no one can take the credit from Pitroda for bringing
the first telecom development wave in India, it was Shri Gomango, the low
profile veteran tribal MP from Orissa, who brought telecom to the top five items
in the government's agenda. It was left to Pitroda to take it from there.
Known as an honest politician, consensus maker and extremely accessible, he
refrained from tom-toming his achievements, partly because it would never have
mattered to his voters at the tribal dominated Koraput district in Orissa.