BSNL to award Rs 1,000-crore contract to Nokia, irks homegrown vendors

NEW DELHI: In a move that has raised eyebrows of India’s domestic telecom companies, state-run Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is set to award a Rs 1,000-crore purchase order to Finnish Nokia for optical transport network (OTN) equipment supply and deployment through a local system integrator.

“This is a very unfortunate situation and discourages Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India). BSNL has disqualified United Telecoms Limited (UTL) and Tejas Networks on shoddy grounds as well as tweaked the original terms and conditions to suit foreign companies,” Rakesh Kumar Bhatnagar, director general, Voice of Indian Communication Technology Enterprises (Voice) told ETTelecom.