Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd will float a new tender for installing 40-50 million GSM lines, to be completed within 8-9 months, to expand its telecom services, the telecoms minister said on Tuesday.
“I am told that they are ready to go for a larger tender … 40-50 million lines,” A Raja told reporters. Earlier, BSNL had said it did not have plans to issue a fresh tender as it was still finalising an existing order.
BSNL has ordered 14 million 2G GSM lines from Ericsson and Nokia, the first phase of a 23 million line order that will be done in two steps, but was waiting for the companies to respond.
The firm cut the size of its original tender to 23 million lines from 45.5 million lines after Raja asked it to negotiate a lower price.