80% of rural cell project for BSNL

The country was divided into 81 clusters for the purpose of setting up passive infrastructure. The bids for 80 clusters were finalised on Monday. Re-bidding for one cluster will be held later as there was a tie between the third and fourth bidders.

Of the 80 clusters, 63 have gone to to BSNL, four each to GTL, Reliance Communication Infrastructure Ltd and National Information Technology, three to Hutch Essar (south), and one each to Hughes Escorts Communications Ltd and Quipo Infrastructure Ltd.

The Department of Telecom had invited tenders in two parts — Part A related to giving USO support to companies that would set up and manage passive mobile infrastructure and Part B related to rolling out of mobile and fixed wireless services.

For Part B, decisions on 10 of the 81 clusters were taken on March 16. These went to to BSNL, Dishnet Wireless and Reliance Communications. The decision for 14 clusters was taken on Monday while for the remaining 57, re-bidding will take place because of a tie between the third and fourth operators (each cluster requires three operators).