In a major deviation from its earlier stand, government-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) has allowed telecom vendors who do not have manufacturing facilities in India to participate in its tender for 93 million GSM lines. This will make Chinese major Huawei eligible for bidding in the world’s largest telecom tender.

The size of the order for supplying equipment and installing the GSM network is likely to be as high as Rs 40,000 crore, if one goes by the lowest bids submitted by Ericsson in the last tender. The technical conditions have been framed in such a way that another Chinese major, ZTE, too will be able to qualify for the tender. It will be the first GSM tender in which any Chinese telecom vendor will participate without the threat of being disqualified.

The tender conditions envisage, “The eligible bidder company or its parent company shall be a manufacturer of GSM EDGE Radio Access Network (GERAN). Such a bidder company shall also be registered in India to carry out telecom related activity.”

Huawei was not eligible for participation in BSNL’s previous tender as it envisaged that the vendors should be Indian manufacturers. ZTE on its part submitted bids, which were rejected on technical grounds. Consequently, the field was left open to European and American players. US-based Motorola, too was, disqualified on technical grounds — leaving European majors Ericsson, Nokia, Siemens and Alcatel (through ITI) in the field.

The tender conditions also envisage that the bidder company must have experience of “planning, engineering, supply, installation and commissioning of at least a total of 20 million lines of GSM 900 and/ or GSM 1800 network comprising of GERAN, MSC, IN, SMSC, UMS, SGSN and GGSN. The experience sought can be from single or multiple networks.” Both the Chinese companies meet this condition, said sources.

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