The Hindu Business Line : BSNL to float fresh tender for 75 m mobile lines

New Delhi, July 23 In a bid to keep up its expansion plans intact, the Communications & IT Minister, Mr A. Raja, has instructed Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) to float a fresh tender for 75 million cellular lines by the end of the year.

The state-owned telecom major is also making a contingency plan to meet the immediate crunch in capacity including giving additional orders to existing vendors Motorola, Ericsson, Nokia and Nortel, in the event BSNL and Ericsson cannot arrive at a decision on the price for the truncated 23 million line contract over the next week.

3G services

This is aimed at tiding over the immediate capacity crunch being faced by the telecom major. Senior officials in the Department of Telecom said that BSNL has also been allowed to procure core equipment for 3G mobile services even before the policy is announced to keep it at par with the private operators. They said the radio part of 3G services equipment will be procured after the policy is finalised as it depends on the spectrum.

DoT officials said that Mr Raja has assured the employees union that these measures would take care of the PSU’s interest. In a meeting held on Monday between the two sides, Mr Raja is understood to have told the BSNL union’s Joint Forum not to go ahead with their plans of an indefinite strike given that 36.3 million cellular lines would be available to BSNL from the new tender, which will meet the company’s requirement for 15 to 18 months.

The union had earlier said that they want BSNL to place order for 45.5 million lines as was initially planned or they would go on an indefinite strike.

Labour Ministry appeal

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Labour has asked the union not to go ahead with the proposed strike. In a note sent to the employees Joint Forum, the Office of the Regional Labour Commissioner (Central) said that it would hold conciliatory meetings between the union and BSNL management. “The union is requested not to resort to direct action till the pendency of conciliation,” said the letter from Ministry of Labour. However, the union is yet to respond to this.

DoT officials also pointed out that the strike call given by the BSNL employees could be termed as illegal as the Industrial Disputes Act 1947 stipulate that workers can go on strike only on issues connected with the terms of employment or conditions of labour. They said that higher Government authorities, including the Prime Minister’s Office, have been briefed about the developments.