Five global players bid for 45.5 mln GSM lines of BSNL

New Delhi, June 12 (UNI) Five global players are bidding for the largest tender for acquiring 45.5 million of GSM lines by Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), the largest telecom services provider of India.

The bidders include Motorola India, Ericssion India, Nokia India, ZTE Telecom India and Siemens Public Communications Network, and the tender was floated on March 22, 2006.

It was open for evaluation of the techno-commercial bid on June 12, 2006, which was also the last date for submission of the bid document.

The techno-commercial bids will be evaluated and qualifiers to these evaluations will only be eligible for the financial bids, a BSNL release said here today.

The sale of tender documents started on March 27, 2006 and closed on April 4, 2006.

Eighteen tender documents were purchsed by prospective bidders.

The two-stage bidding system envisages the planning, engineersing, supply, installation, testing and commissioning of GSM/UMTS based cellular mobile network of capacity of 45.5 million lines, which is to be carried out in three phases in the licensed serviced areas of BSNL other than the western region.

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