Sikdar at odds with MTNL brass

Sikdar at odds with MTNL brass
SANTANU GHOSH

NEW DELHI, MARCH 1: MTNL's tender for Managed Leased Line Data Network (MLDN), now pending for well over 5 months, has run into rough weather with the Minister of State for Communication Tapan Sikdar and most of MTNL's brass ranged on opposite sides. At the heart of the matter is the fact that Alcatel has bid an amount which is Rs 76 crore less than that of ITI, but Sikdar wants the bid to be awarded to ITI.

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The tussle between the two sides, which has seen the setting up of a number of committees to evaluate Alcatel's bid, has even dragged in the office of the Additional Solicitor General of India, Mukul Rohatgi -- Rohatgi, curiously, has given two totally opposite opinions on the subject, within the space of a month!

On November 14, Rohatgi said that since MTNL had evaluated the tenders, and had issued a Letter of Intent to Alcatel, who even furnished a Bank Guarantee in acceptance -- under the circumstances, if MTNL did not place the order on Alcatel, it could find itself in court, Rohatgi said then.

Yet, on December 20, he said that the Letter of Intent could be cancelled without any problem since no contract had been issued so far! Clearly Rohatgi was being furnished with different background papers on each occasion.

The story itself began five months ago, when the Technical Evaluation Committee examined various MLDN bids, and found that Alcatel's bid was fine. Yet, in September, Sikdar said the bid had to be re-evaluated by the Telecom Engineering Centre (Data Group) -- this group pointed out flaws in Alcatel's bid, which MTNL countered and said were flimsy. Thereafter, a committee was set up from within MTNL to look at the project all over again, and on December 7, this committee said Alcatel's bid was not fully compliant with some of the technical requirements.

In early February, Sikdar reviewed the case once again and said that if MTNL's personnel had committed irregularities while evaluating the tender, action should be taken against them, and suggested that the tender be scrapped altogether. MTNL's brass wasn't fazed by this, and on February 22, P.K. Agarwal, the GM (IT) once again repeated that Alcatel's bid was in order.

Meanwhile, MTNL still doesn't have the MLDN lines while the minister and its staffers continue to remain at loggerheads.