No proposal for splitting BSNL’s contract for installing 4G equipment across the country: Devusinh Chauhan

The Minister of State for Communications Devusinh Chauhan today on the floor of the Rajya Sabha said that the Government has no plans to split the BSNL 4G tender across the country. The reply came in response to a question as to whether DoT was looking at the option of splitting the BSNL contract across the country.

The Minister further said that the state-owned TSP BSNL had proceeded with the Expression of Interest (EoI) on 1st January 2021 for Proof of Concept (PoC) from Indian Companies interested in participating in BSNL’s upcoming 4G tender.

“There is no proposal for splitting the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited’s (BSNL) contract for installing 4G equipment across the country. In line with the ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ initiative of the Government of India, BSNL has proceeded with the Expression of Interest (EoI) on 01.01.2021 for Proof of Concept (PoC) from Indian Companies interested in participating in BSNL’s upcoming 4G tender. Letter of Intent (LoI) has been issued to 5 eligible bidders on 01.07.2021, said MoS for Communications, Devusinh Chauhan.

BSNL has plans to install 1 lakh 4G nodes in a bid to increase its market share with a total of 8,629 4G e-Nodes already operational in its mobile network as of 31st December 2020. BSNL already has 4G services operational on a limited scale at a few locations using its existing spectrum for 3G services.

DoT has already reserved adequate 4G spectrum for BSNL that was supposed to be allocated in the June-July period this year. BSNL had earlier requested for postponement of allocation of 4G spectrum till 4G tender was finalized.