Comments
Following up on earlier representations made by individual firms on eligibility conditions of an optical fibre cable (OFC) tender floated by the Tamil Nadu government, the Telecom Equipment Manufacturers Association of India (TEMA) has now written to the State government urging it to re-float a new one.
In a letter addressed to the Managing Director, Tamil Nadu FibreNet Corporation Ltd (TANFINET), a Tamil Nadu government undertaking, NK Goyal, TEMA Chairman-Emeritus said the tender should include preferential market access (PMA) and MSME clauses.
“The current tender eligibility conditions ensure no MSME bidder will qualify, whereas at least one MSME bidder — PWCL — has supplied one of the biggest quantities of cables to BharatNet projects and has infrastructure assessment and TSEC for each of the tendered optical fiber cable (OFC),” Goyal has written.
The companies and TEMA have also written to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to cancel the tender following allegations of corruption.
The tender was floated in December and the last date for bid submission is June 12.
TEMA said that based on the eligibility conditions of the tender, only two-three manufacturers can supply the cable whereas more than 15-20 eligible bidders will not be able to participate, which could result in project slippages and price escalations due to limited participation.
“Therefore, we request that to get the best prices, the tender should be dropped and re-floated with revised tender eligibility conditions,” the TEMA added in the letter.
Some of the TEMA members who had written against the restrictive tender conditions earlier, in their individual capacities, include Finolex, Polycab, Paramount Wires & Cables, Apar Industry and West Coast Optilinks.
The companies alleged that the supply experience in the tender has been so fabricated that only ‘favoured players’ can enter into that eligibility category.
“Crisp of this favour is in the clause of the corrigendum, where it is asking the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) bidder to only procure OFC from the favoured OFC manufacturer,” they said.
A query to TANFINET MD did not elicit any response till the time of going to press.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.