State-owned BSNL has floated around Rs 65,000-crore tender for the implementation of the phase-III BharatNet project, officials said. The tender is part of the Rs 1.4-trillion revamped BharatNet project for design, supply, construction, installation of optical fibre cables, switches, routers and other telecom equipment to connect and upgrade existing 164,000 gram panchayats, as well as connect around 47,000 gram panchayats under the new model.
The tender will also open up an additional revenue stream for companies like Nokia, Ericsson, HFCL, STL, TCS, Tejas Networks, and other local telecom equipment players like Inventum, Infinity Labs, Lekha Wireless, Nivetti Systems and Priyaraja Electronics.
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Sources said companies are evaluating the tender document and will likely submit bids in individual capacity or in consortium. The selected companies will also have to operate and maintain the network in gram panchayats for a period of 10 years.
“We have done extensive consultation with over 280 industry stakeholders before rolling out the tender. We expect to complete the process of offering the tender by April,” PK Purwar, CMD, BSNL, told FE. BSNL is the single project management agency of the BharatNet project.
BSNL has invited bids across 16 states and UTs, including Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Puducherry, Bihar, West Bengal, Punjab, Haryana and Kerala, among others. These states have been divided into packages and two categories.
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Under the qualification criteria, bidders can be a single entity or a group of entities coming together to implement the project. As per the tender document, minimum net worth required for those submitting the bid for only one package is Rs 50-Rs 375 crore, depending on the state it is bidding for. Similarly, the minimum average annual turnover of the last three financial years should be at least Rs 325 crore for only one package.
With regard to the technical capability, the bidder should have executed optical fibre cable (OFC) network construction projects and supplied at least 800 units of equipment such as routers, switches, etc, in the last 10 years, if bidding for one package under category 2 states. “The sole bidder or members of the consortium should meet the technical capability requirements either on their own or jointly,” the document said.
Before the tender rollout, companies such as TCS, Tejas and smaller domestic players through their consortium Voice of Indian Communication Technology Enterprises (VoICE), demanded equitable treatment on the tender terms with foreign counterparts like Ericsson and Nokia.
They had urged the department of telecommunications (DoT) that the process should not have conditions that bar domestic players from participating in the tenders.
On eligibility for smaller domestic players, Purwar said, “We have reduced the eligibility requirement of supplying equipment by around 70% for local firms.”
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Rakesh Bhatnagar, director general, VoICE, said, “The experience for local suppliers as stated should be exempted and that only Class I suppliers be allowed to participate in the tender with a proper field trial.”
Class 1 suppliers are companies who have at least 50% local value addition in their equipment. “BharatNet Phase-III expansion requires policies and processes similar to those adopted for the BSNL 4G project to induce locally designed, developed, and manufactured routers for this network,” Bhatnagar added.
The bids can be submitted by the companies till April 2 and the last date to seek any clarification is March 4. The tender bids will be opened on April 3, as per the tender document.
The BharatNet phase-III project involves a three-level architecture — internet leased line bandwidth to be provided by BSNL at 7,269 blocks; middle-mile connectivity (block to gram panchayat) that will involve private players to operate and maintain the project for 10 years; and last-mile connectivity (village to household) which is the Udyami model.
The government will involve village-level entrepreneurs or Udyamis to take the fibre connections to the homes on a 50-50 revenue sharing basis. Further, these Udyamis will also be given a one-time financial incentive between Rs 8,900 and Rs 12,900 per fibre-to-home (FTTH) connection under the project.
BSNL has a target to provide 15 million home fiber connections over a period of five years using BharatNet Udyami model, officials said.
In August, the Union Cabinet had approved the third such package of Rs 1.39 trillion for BharatNet, taking the total allocation to over Rs 2 trillion so far. In 2017, the Cabinet approved funding of Rs 42,068 crore for the BharatNet (Phase-I and Phase-II) projects. In 2021, the Cabinet allocated another Rs 19,041 crore to implement the project under the public-private partnership (PPP) mode, which, however, failed to attract the interest of the private players.
