Friday, May 7, 2010

Contract to Chinese Company
  
The Minister of State for Communications & Information Technology, Shri Gurudas Kamat informed Rajya Sabha today in a written reply that amendments issued in December, 2009 in the Licence Agreements of all Telecom Service Providers for security related concerns stipulated that the Licensee(s) shall apply to the Licensor for security clearance, with the details of the equipment(s) as well as details of equipment(s) suppliers and manufacturers including Original Equipments Manufacturers (OEM), before placement of the final purchase order for procurement/upgradation of equipment/software for provision of telecommunications services under the license. This would also include any such activity by the franchisee, agents or person of that licensees. In case no response is received from the Licensor within thirty working days, it shall be presumed that there is no objection to the procurement.

The reply, however, clarified that Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has not given any contract to a Chinese company to lay mobile networks.

The reply further informed that in the interest of national security, the Government has directed BSNL in May, 2009 that resources should not be procured from the Chinese vendors for deployment in the sensitive regions of Assam, Tripura, Sikkim, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Meghalaya, West Bengal, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Maharashtra.

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