The Hindu Business Line : Raja meeting BSNL vendors for stop-gap solution

Capacity addition
BSNL will have to pay the cost prevailing 2 years ago if additional orders are given to existing vendors
DoT officials say price is not a concern as it is a small quantity and specifications are different

Thomas K. Thomas

New Delhi, July 24 The Union Communication and IT Minister, Mr A. Raja, has called a meeting of all the vendors supplying GSM equipment to BSNL to consider giving them an additional order to meet the telecom major’s immediate capacity requirements.

The move has been necessitated due to the delay in concluding the truncated 23 million cellular line contract with Ericsson.

Tender delay

BSNL’s expansion plans were thrown off track with Motorola challenging its disqualification from the bidding process and then subsequently Mr Raja’s intervention seeking clarifications from BSNL with respect to the tendering processes followed by the telecom operator.

That tender is now delayed by almost 8 months creating a huge crunch in capacity for BSNL. However, in a bid to bring back the plans on track, BSNL will also issue a fresh tender of 75 million lines. The discussions with the existing vendors is a stop-gap measure.

“In the unlikely event of fresh procurement not concluding in the intervening period, a possibility of increasing the quantity against the present tender still exists. Even if the fresh procurement goes through it may take some time before the actual roll out happens, therefore we are discussing with the existing suppliers to fill the gap,” said a senior DoT official.

They said that Ericsson and Alcatel have already been given an additional 4.5 million line order for meeting the subscriber growth.

Meeting with union

The Minister is also meeting the BSNL union again on Wednesday in a last ditch effort to defuse their call for an indefinite strike. The union has demanded that the procurement for fresh equipment should be for 45.5 million lines as was planned initially and not 23 million.

Union leaders said that move to place additional order with existing vendors would mean that BSNL would have to pay the cost of equipment prevailing two years ago, which in effect was against the Minister’s own stand that the per line cost should be less than $100 per line.

The union said that a final decision on the strike would be taken after the meeting on Wednesday.

However, DoT officials said that the price was not a concern in this case since it was only a small quantity and the specifications were also different compared to the current tender being negotiated with Ericsson.

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