Nepal Telecom, Public Account Comitte at odds over bridging project

Nepal Telecom (NT) has stated that addition of over 1.5 million GSM and CDMA lines through a bridging project (a stop-gap arrangement) is a must as the existing network capacity could only meet demand for the next three months.

The bridging project is currently under the parliament’s Public Account Committee (PAC) scanner as NT planned to carry out the project without following due tender procedures. Under this stop-gap project, NT is planning to add 1.15 million GSM lines and 0.4 million IP based CDMA lines to address the demand for the current fiscal year.

“We will not have SIM cards after three months if we fail to buy additional lines through this project,” said Bishwa Nath Goyal, managing director of NT, giving clarification to the PAC meeting on Thursday. He said the project of adding 10 million GSM lines will take 16-20 months for the commissioning and around 12 months time will be required for the IP CDMA project.

Under the IP CDMA project, NT has targeted to add 2 million CDMA lines with focus on rural areas. It is also set to call a global tender for the 10 million GSM lines, bearing in mind the market demand for up to 2015.

According to NT, existing GSM network does not have the capacity for SIM distribution after mid-November this year as it has been distributing 200,000 SIMs per month on an average. Similarly, it will be able to distribute 156,000 CDMA lines only after setting up 50 additional base transcriber stations.

At the meeting, PAC members said NT should concentrate on improving its network quality. They also asked the state-owned telecom operator to follow tender process to add lines instead of introducing the bridging project and buying lines from same old venders. The final decision of the PAC regarding this project is likely to come after tomorrow afternoon’s meeting.

Lawmaker Narayan Prasad Dahal doubted over NT’s move to upgrade capacity through negotiations with same old vendors in the name of bridging project. “It should call a tender as per the law. If there are any obstacles in the Public Procurement Act, it should be amended,” he added.

NT, which is under pressure to add lines at the earliest amid stiff competition from private GSM operator Ncell, has set aside Rs 1.12 billion for the bridging project and Rs 411.26 million for CDMA lines. “If you prove our vested interest in this project, I am ready to face any action,” said Goyal at the PAC meeting.

Bhagwati Kafle, secretary of the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority, said NT faced the problem due to the delay in calling tender for network expansion. “We do not ask NT to stop the bridging project. It can move on if it does not breach the existing law,” said Kafle.