ITI aggrieved over fate of Rs. 400 cr. tender for hi-tech exchanges

By Sandeep Dikshit

NEW DELHI, NOV. 26. Ignoring protests from the public sector Indian Telephone Industries (ITI) and several MPs , the Union Communications Minister, Mr. Ram Vilas Paswan, is understood to have approved a Rs. 400-crore tender for high-tech exchanges.

The beneficiary of overlooking a vital aspect in the tender will be the U.S. multinational Lucent, say official sources who maintained that the formal letter is yet to be issued. Lucent had surprised analysts by emerging the lowest bidder when tenders were opened in the middle of this year for digital exchanges basically deployed in large cities due to their sophistication and ability to provide tens of thousands of connections. Sources said Mr. Paswan chose to ignore protests from senior officials of ITI, which happens to be under his Ministry's administrative control.

``To our knowledge, the L-1 bidder has quoted V5.2 charges on the basis of per channel of E-1. However, while calculating the total price of V5.2 software, RTU fees as per the tender requirement of number of E-1s, the ``per channel of E-1'' price, has been assumed as ``per E-1 price''. Therefore, the total value of the V5.2 software should be 30 times more as E-1 consists of 30 channels. If this correction is done, then L1 bidder would automatically become the highest bidder. In the previous tender of 12.3 million lines, the same party has quoted V5.2 on per EI basis but not on per channel basis and hence, the above anomaly did not exist,'' wrote the ITI Executive Director on October 13.

The company has reasons to feel aggrieved. ITI was the fifth bidder and according to rules, orders will be placed only on the first four companies. The company lost out by just four paise to the French MNC Alcatel. Sources said had the evaluation been properly conducted, one of the MNCs would have had to make way for the public sector company.

Lucent has been quoting low as part of its strategy under a new chief, Mr. Rich McGinn, to re-enter the markets of India, Indonesia and the Philippines. The company had lost out these countries in competitive tenders due to high prices.

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Section  : Business
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