BSNL may withdraw its 15 million GSM lines tender

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) may withdraw its tender for 15 million GSM lines, owing to the non-responsiveness of private vendors.

The operator had floated this tender in July 2011, on an e-tendering reverse auction basis. In a reverse auction, the company that floats the tender fixes the upper limit of the contract and interested parties participate in a series of rounds in which they submit offers lower than the ceiling contract value and those of the previous round until a single party emerges as the lowest bidder.

Prior to this, BSNL had cancelled a tender for 5.5 million GSM lines. It had also cancelled a 93 million line tender worth Rs 350 billion.