Dot To Evaluate Bids For Vsnl Project Tomorrow

The department of telecommunications (DoT) committee set up to evaluate bidders for Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL)'s regional hub project is scheduled to meet on Thursday to take a final decision on the partner in the joint venture.

The hub project proposes to link up a trans-Eurasian cable to South Asian countries like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Myanmar.

It is likely to clear the bid of British Telecom (BT), which has emerged as the sole bidder in the project, sources said.

Two other bidders shortlisted for final evaluation -- Cable & Wireless (C&W) and the Global One consortium (comprising Sprint International, Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom) -- did not put in their final bids on August 10, the last date for submission.

 

If cleared tomorrow, this will mark the completion of a 18-month process that started early last year. In the process -- marked by controversy and allegations of partiality -- what started as a $500 million (over Rs 2,100 crore) project has been stripped of its infrastructure (cables and switching equipment) and remains a purely a marketing alliance.

Even so, BT has expressed interest in participating in the project. The hub project was initially a brainchild of the British company and VSNL. Faced with criticism, DoT asked VSNL to go in for an global tender to finalise a joint venture partner.

Seven bidders submitted replies to VSNL request for proposal (RFP) for the project in October. Besides BT, C&W and Global One, the other bidders were Hutchison Telecom; Canadian Teleglobe International; Australian Telstra and North American Gateway, an NRI company.

The hub project as proposed by VSNL and BT envisaged development of India as a regional hub for voice and data telecom traffic. This would be done by laying a high-capacity fibre optic submarine cable from Karachi to Calcutta which would have seven landing points (with dedicated exchanges) in the country with spurs or offshoots running off to Mauritius, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Experts feel that DoT put a spanner in VSNL's wheels because it felt that if the project was cleared with the full infrastructure, it would amount to giving it a first access into the lucrative (Rs 6,800 crore last year) domestic long distance telecom market.