CHENNAI: P Santhosham is the new chief general manager of BSNL, Chennai Telephones now, replacing SM Kalavathi, who is now promoted as advisor, TN Licensed Services Area, Department of Telecommunications.
A BTech degree-holder in Electronics from IIT-Madras and also an MBA in Marketing and Human Resources, he belongs to the 1983 batch of Indian Telecom Service.
Beginning his career as Divisional Engineer in Hubli in Karnataka, Santhosham has executed the major project of Madras-Bombay 140-mbps Digital Microwave System Mangalore-Panjim (modem) during September in 1990 involving erection of 100M special Heavy Weight Tower in a short period of 45 days in the top most point of a hill where rainfall is experienced for 11 months continuously.
As a Divisional Engineer of (CCP) Project Chennai, he has executed various projects notable of which was Tirupathy-Tirumala project under which a distance of 54 km was executed in just seven months’ time at a total cost of Rs 10.5 lakh. This project was taken as a model and implemented all over the country.