State-owned BSNL has decided to re-tender its 5.5 million lines order to expand its GSM operations as the government has lifted ban on the import of Chinese equipment.
The development would spell good news, especially for the Chinese vendor Huawei which had earlier bagged the company?s order for south zone.
According to a senior official, BSNL decided to go for a re-tender after the government allowed Chinese vendors to supply telecom equipment to the PSU.
BSNL had received bids from Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks for the tender so far.
After a temporary bar due to security concerns, the government lifted ban on state-run telecom firm BSNL to procure equipment from Chinese vendors, minister of state for telecom and IT Sachin Pilot had said.
The BSNL employee unions had raised the issue with the department of telecom (DoT) last week. They alleged that ban on BSNL for buying equipment from Chinese vendors was ?discriminatory?, as private players were allowed import from China.
Earlier, DoT had barred BSNL from deploying Chinese equipment in sensitive regions ? Assam, Manipur, Tripura, Sikkim, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Meghalaya, West Bengal, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Maharashtra.
BSNL had earlier cancelled 93-million line tender amidst controversies that the process lacked competition and also the PSU did not require that kind of capacity addition at one go.
Leading vendor Nokia-Siemens, which was disqualified from participating in the financial bid, had also challenged the decision of the telecom PSU in the court.
Due to cancellation of the tender the PSU has been facing severe shortage in its capacity and sources said that in some of the circles the company was unable to add new subscribers resulting in loss of market share.