Gateway to Act East Policy is under threat

The central government funded BharatNet Phase-3 project will not be rolled out in the entire north east region (NER). How did the project land in this situation? The answer is in details. BSNL issued the tender without giving any idea of “estimated cost” to the bidder. As a result, the gap between L1 bids and H1 bids is extremely high, upto 158 per cent.

After the opening of financial bids and knowing everyone’s price, BSNL officers worked out the estimated cost, they named it “assessed cost”. Based on this, they are doing comparison vis-à-vis the rates quoted in the bids, and judging them to be in acceptable range or not, in an arbitrary manner.