New Delhi: The date of submission of the Rs 2,000 crore tender floated by the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) for 40 lakh GSM lines, has been extended to April 10. This has come as a relief for the potential bidders who had been demanding an extension of up to four weeks in the last date of submission, considering the massive size of the tender.And BSNL, which till now had been opposing this demand with the argument that its already delayed GSM project would get further delayed, has now partially relented by extending the last date, which earlier was April 2, by eight days. "A lot of time consuming calculations needed to be completed, since it's a very complicated tender. Besides, BSNL came out with clarifications on the tender conditions only on Tuesday, and we needed more time to piece our bids together, said a Delhi-based official of an international telecom equipment manufacturer.
But now people would be much more prepared to submit the bid and hopefully BSNL would get a better price, he added. The companies who have bought the tender documents and are expected to bid aggressively for this tender include international majors like Lucent, Ericsson, Motorola, Alcatel, Siemens, Nokia, Nortel and Indian companies like HFCL, ITIL, and HCL.
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