Bt-Vsnl

Telecom secretary A V Gokak yesterday said that policy hurdles were holding up a final decision on the Rs 1,700-crore proposed joint venture between British Telecom and Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd. The proposal is pending with the department of telecommunications (DoT).

The BT-VSNL proposal envisages constructing a regional hub (network) to handle voice, data, Internet and multimedia traffic into and out of the south Asian region. The project is to set up a high-capacity fibre optic cable starting from Karachi with seven landing points in India.

Such decisions take time, especially when policy matters are involved, Gokak told reporters here yesterday.

 

We are studying whether the constitution of a regional hub negates our commitment before the World Trade Organisation that VSNL monopoly would be retained until 2004.

More importantly, the proposal plans to set up internal cables in the network, he continued. We have to see whether the monopoly of DoT would be violated. The BT-VSNL project also proposes a Jalandhar-Lahore fibre optic link.

On a question on whether the government would prefer the competitive bidding route to bilaterally negotiated alliance on lines of the BT-VSNL project, Gokak said, For strategic alliances, tendering is not necessary. However, authorities have to take a final decision and it has to fit into our framework.

Gokak also said that DoT was giving finishing touches to the countrys Internet policy. We have completed our discussions with the department of electronics (DoE) and now are working to reduce it to a common paper, which we will present to the government, he said.