The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a preliminary enquiry (PE) to scrutinise the issues pertaining to Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) allocating franchisees for its Wi-Max services.
It is believed that the PE is registered against certain BSNL officials and employees of an international firm. It is alleged that the company was given BSNL’s Wi-Max franchisee in six circles, despite failing to meet predefined specifications, after the intervention of former Minister of Telecommunications and IT, A. Raja.
A Department of Telecommunications (DoT) committee, in its report on this issue, said that the terms offered by the franchisees were not in BSNL?s financial interest and that the deals needed to be reviewed.
Prior to this, in January 2008, BSNL had selected Soma Networks to deploy Wi-Max service in Gujarat, Maharashtra,
