NT earlier this month had issued a Letter of Intent (LoI) to the Chinese vendor, which had already won the bid to install 4.8 million GSM lines of the Package B of the project, to install the remaining lines as well.[break]
“Huawei has positively responded to our LoI. We will sit down for the final agreement shortly,” a senior official at NT told Republica. The official said the NT would invite Huawei for the agreement very soon.
“We are hopeful about signing the deal within a week,” he added. Once the agreement is signed, the Chinese vendor will be responsible for supply, delivery and installation of equipment and commissioning of 5.2 million lines.
With the objective to provide the mega project to two different vendors, NT had invited the bid in such a way that the lowest bidder could implement Package B only and the second lowest bidder could implement Package A by lowering its cost to meet the cost of lowest bidder.
However, the plan hit a snag after the second lowest bidder, China-based ZTE, cold shouldered the offer for Package A. ZTE at first had expressed its readiness to implement the 5.2 million GSM lines, but later backed out, citing that implementing Package A that covers mostly rural areas was costly than what NT offered to pay.
The implementation of the project was further delayed after Ericsson, the third bidder, also did not respond to the LoI of the NT. After seizing ZTE´s bid bond worth Rs 420 million, NT had offered the project to Ericsson. But the Swedish vendor, which had quoted the highest price among the three bidders, also cold shouldered the NT´s request.
“We are glad that Huawei has accepted the offer. Otherwise, we would have to restart the tender process. This would have taken more time and the cost too would have escalated,” said the official.
Huawei had bagged the contract of Package B of the project at Rs 6.75 billion.
Under the Package A, the operator plans to install 2G, 3G and 4G lines in the rural and hilly areas of central, eastern, far-western and mid-western development regions.
Similarly, under Package B, NT targets to cover Bagmati, Gandaki, Dhaulagiri and Lumbini zones, mostly urban areas. Huawei currently is delivering equipment for the installation of 4.8 million GSM lines.
With the work on Package A in progress, the operator plans to distribute new lines by the end of current fiscal year.
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