India’s state-owned mobile operator BSNL has confirmed it is studying bids from Ericsson India and Huawei for a contract to supply 93 million GSM lines in India, which is believed to be one of the largest tenders of its kind. According to a Dow Jones Newswires report, India’s junior telecom minister Gurudas Kamat told the Indian Parliament today that BSNL has opened the financial bids from Ericsson for the supply of telecoms equipment for India’s north and east regions; and the same from Huawei for the southern region. “Financial bids are opened only for the bidders whose bids are found techno-commercially eligible,” Kamat said, but added that no contracts have been awarded yet.

Last September the company said it had received bids from six companies, Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia Siemens Networks, Alcatel-Lucent, ZTE and Nortel Networks. However, the tender – estimated to be worth INR30,000 crore (US$6.3 billion) according to earlier reports – has proven controversial with BSNL alleged to have unfairly favoured some vendors over others. There have also been security issues. Dow Jones Newswires reports that the federal home ministry and the intelligence bureau have raised concerns over the presence of foreign companies “especially from certain countries in the critical and sensitive border areas, that may have national security implications,” Kamat said.