A high-level meeting will be convened soon to decide on probing the India operations of Chinese Telecom companies - Huawei and ZTE - against the backdrop of the US calling the two firms a threat to American national security.
Terming the issue as sensitive, Economic Affairs Secretary Arvind Mayaram wrote to his counterpart in Department of Telecom R Chandrashekhar about it and also suggested that the matter could be brought before Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, official sources said.
Both the companies, however, maintained that there was nothing wrong in their operations and that they would be complying with all security norms of the Indian government.
The meeting which will be attended by officials of Finance Ministry, Department of Telecom and security establishment will examine and may recommend whether a probe needs to be carried out against these two companies or a check should be maintained about their expansion in Indian telecom market, the sources said.
In its note, it was brought out that a copy of the US finding should be handed over to the DoT and Department of Science and Technology to assess whether the potential risks envisaged are possible and secondly whether it is possible to take any pre-emptive steps in this regard.
A US House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence initiated investigations in November 2011 and presented its report last month.