Minister to take decision on GSM tender tomorrow

New Delhi, July 16 (UNI) The government will take a final decision tomorrow on the contentious tender for procuring 45.5 million GSM lines on the basis of recommendations forwarded by BSNL this evening.

Sources say that the Ministry is likely to cut by half the GSM lines for 3G services and will also add focus on 2G or normal voice services.

The board meet last evening is understood to have decided to cut by half the 45.5 million line GSM order and re-negotiate the price with Ericsson and Nokia-the two equipment manufacturers who had earlier qualified to get the order for putting in the lowest bids.

Incidentally, Ericsson has called a press conference to announce an ''important decision'' tomorrow.

The deal which was caught in the eye of a storm triggering dissent among employees who had struck work has gone to Ericsson after Motorola and its Chinese combine ZTE were disqualified.

''We may even begin a fresh process,'' a BSNL source said on the likelihood of a re-bid after the Minsiter called for a relook at the Ericsson tender.

On Wednesday, thousands of employees struck work demanding immediate fulfilment of the BSNL's GSM service expansion tender.

The tender was the outcome of a more than year-long process under which four foreign firms, including Nokia, Ericsson, Siemens and ZTE, were to collaborate with BSNL in expanding its technology and machinery for setting up six crore additional GSM connections.

The tender was first put up in October 2005, with decision taken regarding tender conditions and appointment of an empowered committee. The excerise was called in May 2006 and parties submitted their bids in the following month.

Due to certain technical reasons one of the bidding parties, Motorola, was barred from participating in the tender process, which made Motorola approach the Delhi high court and obtain a stay in the proceedings. Later in April this year, Motorola withdrew its petition and the tender process was resumed.

Mr Raja had asked BSNL to negotiate for a lower price and had to drop the 3G component from the deal as there is no 3G policy with the government. In this case, BSNL will have to reconsider the bid with Motorola, which was reportedly rejected on the grounds that the US company did not have expertise in 3G.

BSNL, the country's largest telecom company is currently facing equipment shortage and have been steadily losing market to rivals who are mostly private players like Reliance and Airtel.

UNI