Govt cuts BSNL tender to half at 23 million GSM lines

New Delhi, July 18 (UNI) The Government today cut the GSM tender of BSNL to half at 23 million lines and the telecom PSU would place the order to successful bidders Ericsson and Nokia soon.

''The minister A raja after reviewing the recommendations forwarded by BSNL has curtailed the tender to half at 23 million lines. The advance purchase order (APO) would soon be placed to the two bidders,'' a senior DoT official said.

The order will comprise both 2G and 3G services, he said, however, the order for 3G would be placed only after the policy on services and spectrum availability is put in place.

''We are not satisfied with the decision to curtail the GSM lines and the delay in implementing 3G,'' V A N Namboodiri, Joint Convener of BSNL and MTNL employees forum, said.

The forum will meet tomorrow to decide future course of action, he added.

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.

State-run BSNL invited tenders for 45.5 million GSM lines at an estimated cost of Rs 20,000 crore, for both 2G and 3G, and Ericsson and Nokia emerged as the lowest bidders at 107 dollars and 176 dollars per line respectively.

Telecom minister A Raja had later asked BSNL to negotiate a lower price, arguing it would be paying substantially more for the equipment than another state-run firm.

BSNL's board met on Monday to discuss the issue.

A reduction in tender size will bring down Ericsson's share to 13.8 million lines from 27.9 million lines earlier while Nokia which emerged as L2 will get 9.2 million lines against 18.4 million envisaged earlier. As per the terms of the tender, Nokia will have to match Ericsson's price and the contract will be split between the Ericsson and Nokia at 60:40 ratio.

UNI