BSNL not to source equipment from Huawei in west zone

State-run BSNL has dropped Chinas Huawei Technologies from a list of potential telecom equipment suppliers for the west zone,possibly because intelligence officials were unhappy with the vendors entry in the sensitive area. BSNL dropped the Chinese vendor after the IB wrote to it saying Huawei cannot be entrusted with the telecom expansion on the sensitive western zone.

However,BSNL chairman and managing director Kuldeep Goyal said the telecom company was not looking at expanding in the western zone as of now.

Huawei is being considered only for the south zone. At the moment,we do not need any immediate expansion for the west zone as the region has capacity of nine million GSM lines provided by ITI-Alcatel from the previous tender, Goyal said.